In All the Old Familiar Places
by AutumnMTC
Summary: When Shepard's estranged younger brother Nathan is kidnapped by the street gang she left behind, she pulls in a few special favors from her crew in order to track him down. Garrus goes planetside with Shepard and the more time they spend together, the more he realizes that he might not know Shepard at all.
1. Prologue

**Author's note: This was an idea I couldn't get out of my head. I've done some digging and it hasn't been attempted yet (as far as I'm aware of), so we're going to see how well this is received. I've got quite a bit of it already written so don't worry about updates.**

 **Setting: Post-Mass Effect 2. One week after the Collector base but before Hackett contacts Shepard about Aratoht. Cool?**

 **Enjoy the prologue. Enjoy this whole thing, really. I know I'm having fun writing it. Kisses!**

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As Nathan sprinted down the sidewalk, he tried to remember the last time he'd been properly stabbed.

It was probably that time when he was ten, if his memory served him correctly. Maddox hadn't been happy when he found out that Nate had eaten the candy bar they'd stolen off a tourist earlier that morning; it was one of those king-sized cookies n' crème Hershey's Kracklebars and Nate just couldn't help himself. When his sister found him later that night, crying and stumbling down the sidewalk with a switchblade jammed deep into the flesh of his thigh, she'd stitched him back together with the super-sturdy dental floss she always kept under her mattress and sent him back out to keep working until late evening. "We don't have time for this, Nate," she scolded, sewing up the wound with jerky movements. "If you can't run, you're useless out there."

He wished she were here, even if it was just to slap him upside the head before dragging him by his collar to safety—not that he'd ever admit that out loud.

Nate gripped his bicep, fighting the hot slick of blood that threatened to dislodge his fingers from their makeshift white-knuckled tourniquet. He hadn't recognized the man who'd gotten close enough to jab the small omniblade into his arm during the scuffle—then again, Nate hadn't recognized any of the people who'd jumped him. Maybe they planned it that way. No familiar faces, no leads to follow if he got away and went to the authorities.

Or maybe all those once-familiar faces were dead. It had been years since he and his sister went into hiding, so anything could have happened since then. He tried not to think about it.

Breathing hard, Nate turned sharply to the left and vaulted over a pile of compacted garbage cubes that littered the entrance to the nearest side street. He didn't know this neighborhood as well as he once did—too many new stores, too many abandoned ones. The landscape appeared to have shifted into a deeper state of disrepair over the past several years, if that was even possible. The windows of the apartment complexes that towered above him were filthy, coated with years' worth of smog and soot, and the ones that weren't dirty were smashed and covered with spider web-like cracks, making them impossible to see through. Neon storefronts and larger-than-life advertisements flashed in Nate's peripherals, almost giving him a headache with the bass-heavy music and gyrating asari dancers splashed across the giant screens. He remembered the neighborhood being bright and annoying at night, but this was…incessant. Irritating. Almost painful to be around.

Nate yelped out an apology as he jumped over the legs of a homeless man laid out on the sidewalk, clearly drunk and rambling about a man named Fitzgibbons who happened to owe him lots of money. The poverty-stricken people who seemed to spill out of every crevice of the street didn't appear to notice that Nate was gushing blood from his arm and was clearly in a fight for his life. This was probably a regular Tuesday night for most of them. Nate was too winded and light-headed to feel anything close to anger at their indifference. He instead settled for mild disappointment mixed with a dash of overwhelming panic.

The clamor of footfalls behind him only seemed to get closer. For a second, Nate swore he could feel the tips of their reaching fingers brush the back of his neck, but maybe he was going crazy with exhaustion and blood loss. He couldn't be sure. Nate reached the corner of the throughway and darted left into the bustle of the pedestrian-filled street, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with a messenger on a sleek silver hoverboard. One of the newer models, he noticed. Nate ignored the obscene gesture that was sent his way and shouldered his way through the crowd of laughing people, occasionally catching a glimpse of a few scantily-clad asari hookers who had just picked up some business from a group of rowdy young gentleman nearby. Wincing as his foot caught the edge of a loose manhole cover, Nate stumbled past the (extremely illegal) business exchange and joined the flowing current of people who were all heading north, silently hoping he could lose his pursuers in the bustle of the city's nightlife.

He was weaving through the crowd, muttering apologies and being careful not to get blood on anyone. No one took much notice of him; a pair of salarians glared when he stumbled in front of them, a few people not-so-subtly averted their eyes from the garish red stain that was flowering across his shirtsleeve, pretending not to see his bloodless lips and haggard appearance. Several people outright stared, but merely pointed and said something to their friends who, once again, did absolutely _nothing_ to help. Violence was a regular occurrence in this part of the city. Unless Nate flat-out died in front of them, he knew no one would lift a finger to help him out.

His sister had been right, he realized grimly. No matter how many years passed, coming back to the city would never be safe for either of them. Even with new identities, their faces were too recognizable. He should have skipped the interview, stayed home, and gone to dinner at his uncle's house like he did every Thursday night.

He was supposed to be eating mashed potatoes and watching Wheel of fucking Fortune right now, not struggling to stay alive.

He had to keep going. It was only a little farther to the subway station where Nate knew he could lose his pursuers long enough to get to a hospital and go home. Gritting his teeth, he put all of his remaining energy into forcing his legs to move faster as he gradually neared the edge of the raucous horde.

Finally, Nate burst through the surging throng of people, feet pounding against the pavement as he darted into another side alleyway. The roar of the crowd dwindled into a low buzz and the bright advertisements that lined the walls of the buildings cast eerie shadows on the path before him. _Just a little farther,_ he thought grimly.

He got halfway down the passageway before his luck jumped ship. Nate's foot caught on the rungs of a metal drainage grate that had been hidden in shadow and he felt his ankle twist and crack sickeningly. Nate yelped and tumbled forward, curling inward as to not land directly on his face or the gushing wound in his arm, instead landing on his uninjured side. He found himself in a puddle of warm liquid—it smelled suspiciously like urine, he thought—which began to seep into the front of his dress shirt. His ankle was in incredible pain. He fought the urge to vomit.

Scrabbling for a foothold, Nate lurched upright and clutched at a nearby drainpipe for support. The pain in his ankle was indescribable, but not nearly as bad as the gash in his arm. It helped keep things in perspective. He _had_ to keep moving, he knew. Nate's vision was swimming and filled with spots that he tried to blink away—not a good sign. With great difficulty, he put one foot in front of the other and moved forward slowly, dragging his shoulder against the grimy wall of the alleyway as a guide.

Loud footfalls echoed around him, slow and deliberate. They weren't hurrying; they were savoring every moment and torturing him at the same time. He couldn't run anymore. They both knew that. Still, Nate groaned and staggered forward, ignoring the slow burn on his shoulder from the wall he was sliding against.

The shadow of a man came up behind Nate, reaching out. He didn't bother to turn. He knew what was coming next and was strangely okay with that.

Nate thought of his sister.

 _Fuck you, Janie. Fuck you for leaving me._

Pain exploded at the back of Nate's skull. He welcomed the darkness.

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 **Please review. It keeps me going.**


	2. Chapter 1

He found the model UT-47 Kodiak drop shuttle on a Tuesday.

Garrus stared at the obnoxiously-bright orange display. 4000 credits. Spirits, did Shepard spend that much on each one of her models? Cerberus must have paid her well over the last several months—not that those funds would likely be continuing, he thought smugly—but even if she had more money than sense (which she didn't), there was no way anyone in their right mind could justify purchasing a model ship worth _four thousand credits_.

Then again, she had spent thousands of credits on fish that she repeatedly killed. Maybe she really _did_ have more money than sense. The thought was not comforting, considering that he took orders from her.

One talon hovered over the button that would send four thousand of his hard-earned credits down the drain. In an ordinary situation, he could never rationalize buying something so…inconsequential. The stupid thing didn't even light up, for crying out loud. Hell, for such an obscene amount of money, the thing should be able to fly around and shoot lasers.

The salarian behind the counter peered up at Garrus, looking uncomfortable. "Uh…can I help you decide on something, sir?"

"No, I've got it."

"Are you sure?" he asked skeptically, glancing from Garrus to the line that was no doubt forming behind him. Garrus could hear the impatient sigh from the asari who had been standing behind him for the past five minutes. The salarian swallowed and gestured to the purchasing terminal. "We have an online store, you know. You could always—"

"One more minute, all right?" Garrus snapped, eyes not leaving the small image of the model ship. "I promise."

The salarian clerk muttered something about not getting paid enough and retreated into the back storage room, leaving Garrus to deliberate in peace. The impatient asari huffed and stormed off to Citadel Souvenirs. _Finally._

Deep down, he knew this decision wasn't difficult. He had plenty of money from Cerberus now that his contract with them was completed. If he suddenly lost his mind and bought fifty model ships, he would still have enough to buy a flat in Cipritine and get that new M-98 Widow rifle he'd had his eye on for the past few months. Money wasn't the issue.

Shepard was.

They still hadn't talked about it. That night in her cabin had been super weird and awkward and he was pretty sure he'd stabbed her with one of his elbow spurs at some point, but it had also been completely and utterly unforgettable—in the best sense of the word. She'd entrusted him with her personal comfort and vulnerabilities, and that was something Garrus had no intention of screwing up anytime soon. Afterwards, Garrus had been so distracted by the way she gracefully moved across the battlefield that he was lucky to have made it two feet into the Collector base without getting knocked on his ass.

Since returning through the Omega-4 relay, they'd both been tied up with their respective duties. Too busy to talk, to dredge up the _what ifs_ that tormented him all hours of the day. Shepard filled out lengthy reports for whoever was reading them now (Hackett? The Council? Hell, he didn't know) and Garrus spent late nights in the shuttle bay with Tali and Legion, repairing the hull of the ship and assuring Joker that _yes_ , his baby was definitely going to survive the relay jump back to the Citadel. Neither Garrus nor Shepard had gotten around to having the _where-do-we-stand-now-that-we've-slept-together_ conversation.

He knew he should probably do more research on how to broach the subject with a human woman, but the research he'd done before hadn't helped him in the slightest. There was no reason to trust the extranet now. He had to figure this out for himself.

Spirits, what _was_ he trying to figure out? He knew he wanted to keep doing…whatever it was they were doing. She was his best friend, his mentor, his role model. Talking to her was easier than breathing. Sure, she had a lot of secrets, but it wasn't his place to ask about them just yet. In the meantime, Garrus had all of her idiosyncrasies and weird human expressions down to a science: she would always pop the knuckle of her right index finger when she was coming up with a plan on the fly; when Shepard was angry, Garrus knew to pick up her coffee mug before her fluctuating biotics swept it off the table (the ship was always short on cups because she kept breaking them); she tended to run her fingers through her wild locks of dark hair when she was stressed—if she was extra stressed, she used _both_ hands (and usually got her fingers horrendously knotted in the expanse of loose curls).

When she was happy, the corners of her eyes crinkled in a way he used to think was weird, but now he wished he saw more of it. She didn't smile nearly enough.

She also loved super-expensive model ships that _clearly_ didn't shoot lasers or fly. It was total bullshit.

He was on the losing side of his own argument. He knew it. Garrus could almost picture Shepard's face lighting up with one of her rare, blinding smiles that used to catch him off-guard back in the early days on the SR-1. Still, he hesitated. Was it too presumptuous? Too early? He knew humans gave gifts to each other on certain holidays, but he wasn't sure about the protocol on gift-giving just for the hell of it. What if he somehow offended her?

Garrus wracked his brain. What was that thing Shepard always said? A rock and a hard place?

Steeling himself, Garrus pressed his finger against the spongy, well-used purchasing button and winced as the credit transfer went through. He was pretty sure he felt a portion of his soul die along with part of his wallet. Maybe he was just being dramatic. He probably was. Either way, the salarian clerk emerged from the back of the store with a small box under his arm, looking exhausted.

"Finally made a decision, huh?" he asked resignedly, sliding the box across the counter to Garrus, who eagerly snatched it up and started reading the description on the side. He heard the salarian mutter something else that his translator didn't quite catch, for which Garrus was grateful.

"Thanks," Garrus said, ignoring the comment and turning around and merging with the crowd of people making their way down the street. He wanted to give the model to Shepard before he lost his nerve. They'd been dry-docked for the past week, thanks to Joker's insistence on repairing the ship before dropping everyone off on their respective planets. Kasumi had disappeared the second they docked at the Citadel, not even bothering to say goodbye to anyone besides Shepard, and Samara and Mordin had packed up and hopped on transports, explaining that they had certain things that had gone unattended for far too long. There were no teary goodbyes, luckily. Garrus knew Shepard hated those kinds of long, dramatic farewells.

The rest of the crew was holding out for the cheaper option of waiting for repairs to be completed so they could get dropped off by the _Normandy._ Thane planned on staying on the Citadel with his son, Kolyat. Tali wanted to go home to the Flotilla with Legion in tow, in hopes of reaching a tentative alliance with the geth (Legion didn't seem thrilled with the idea, but how thrilled can software possibly sound?). Grunt practically begged to stay with Shepard, claiming there was more he needed to learn from his battlemaster before going to Tuchanka. Shepard managed to talk him out of it, thankfully. The rest of the crew (Miranda, Jacob, Zaeed, and Jack) planned on tagging along with Shepard for the trip back to Earth in hopes of shacking up with the Alliance to prepare for the Reapers.

That left Garrus. He hadn't told anyone his plan—he hadn't made a decision in the first place.

If he was being totally honest with himself, he had three real options:

Option A: He could return to C-Sec and work a boring desk job until the Reapers showed up to kill everyone in the universe, which at that point, he probably wouldn't complain too much. Two years of doing whatever the hell he wanted had given Garrus a newfound hatred for paperwork.

Option B: He could return to Palaven and see his family for the first time in…well, Garrus didn't know how long he'd been gone at this point. Two and a half years? Three? Solana would hate him for not helping out with his mom, his dad would hate him for doing pretty much everything illegally for the last however-long-it-had-been, and his mom probably wouldn't remember who he was.

Option C: He could stick with Shepard and see what happened next.

When it came right down to it, Garrus knew he would stay with Shepard, even if they hadn't spent that night together in her cabin. She was the best thing for him. Shepard kept him grounded and made him think before he acted, and he kept her from doing stupid heroic crap like charging at a Harvester with nothing but her biotics and a half-loaded pistol. They worked well together; separately, not so much.

He wanted to stay on the _Normandy._ He hoped the model ship would help convince her.

Tucking the box underneath his arm, Garrus followed the flow of pedestrians toward the rapid transit terminal. He passed cuddly asari couples and a group of salarians who were arguing over whether or not the newest Blasto movie was better than the third one ("Impossible, the third installment won best picture!"). A pair of krogan were facing each other down by a neatly-trimmed topiary that was shaped like a hanar, narrowing their eyes at one another and grumbling about fish in the Presidium lakes—Shepard mentioned something about that a few weeks ago. Garrus decided to ask her about it later.

Slipping past a group of waddling volus, Garrus reached the rapid transit terminal. He keyed in his destination for the docking bay and bounced on his toes as he waited. He knew she wouldn't come back to the ship until later that evening, but he figured he could figure out what he was going to say to her while he waited.

"Garrus?" a familiar voice called out. "Is that you?"

Garrus turned to see Tali, waving him down from across the throng of moving people. She began to push her way over. Surreptitiously, Garrus turned the box underneath his arm so the label wasn't showing and made an effort to look casual.

"I thought that was you," Tali said, elbowing her way past an elcor who refused to budge. She peered up at him, eyes bright behind her violet faceplate.

"Well, there aren't many turians running around the Citadel with half-destroyed faces."

"Could have fooled me."

"Oh, har-dee-har. Leave the scathing remarks to the professionals, Tali."

"You're not the only one on the _Normandy_ who can crack jokes, you know."

"I'm the only one who should be allowed, apparently. That comeback was terrible."

Tali's shoulders shook as she laughed. She punched him in the arm good-naturedly. " _Bosh'tet_. It wasn't that bad." She tilted her head to the side in question. "Where are you headed, anyway?"

"Nowhere in particular," he lied. "You?"

She gestured over her shoulder, shaking her head dejectedly. "I tried to get into this really nice dextro restaurant down the street, but they won't let me in without someone more socially acceptable. You know how they are about quarians."

"Saving the galaxy doesn't seem to count for much around here," he mused. "You could try threatening them."

"I don't think that would help my social standing, Garrus. Or my appetite."

"Blackmail is also an option."

"Not helping."

Garrus shrugged, leaning against a pillar. Subtly, he checked the terminal's display for a time estimate; it told him the skycar would be along in about five minutes, give or take. Distractedly, he told Tali, "You could ping Shepard and see if her Spectre status can get you in. That's about all it's good for these days, anyway."

Her silence was the first indicator that Garrus' day was about to get a lot worse.

With Shepard's track record, the entire crew of the _Normandy_ had been forced to become experts on identifying the exact moment when a situation went to complete shit. Usually, it was easy to spot. He was used to Shepard's _hey-guess-what-just-happened_ approach, which was usually a sign that she'd pissed someone off and now a bunch of people needed to be shot, or maybe a person needed saving on a remote planet out in the ass-end of nowhere. Either that or she'd sheared off the Mako's plating again, which always ended up giving him headaches for days. The moments weren't always so clearly stated, though. Sometimes, Shepard would sigh quietly or tell a particular joke that always meant his day was about to become more dangerous and annoying. Garrus and Tali were professionals at noticing these turning points and acting quickly.

Garrus wasn't sure what he noticed first: maybe it was Tali's stiffening shoulders, or her sharp intake of breath at his words. Either way, he instantly knew something was wrong. Things were about to get complicated.

Tali recoiled, looking from side to side as if she just now realized he was alone. "Shepard… isn't with you?"

Garrus frowned. He didn't need his visor to tell him that Tali's heartrate leapt with every single word. "No. She's with Joker, last I heard."

"I just saw Joker at Flux," she said, shaking her head slowly. "He said that Shepard was with _you_."

Garrus' stomach tightened and he felt his mandibles flare in poorly-disguised shock. If Shepard wasn't out with Joker, who _was_ she with? She always made sure at least one person knew where she was at all times, just in case a situation arose. (The situations varied from mess hall scuffles to full-blown Reaper invasions, so she tried to maintain an open-door policy.) Garrus' mind began to race with millions of possibilities—none of them good.

His face didn't betray the anxiety that was settling in the pit of his stomach like a heavy stone. "Well, that's… interesting."

"The normal definition of interesting or our definition?"

"I'm not entirely sure. Maybe both?"

Tali opened up her omnitool and started typing rapidly. Her shoulders were stiff and she was swaying from side to side, obviously nervous for the same reason Garrus was. Without looking up, she asked, "You're sure you haven't seen her today?"

"I saw her in the armory this morning, but not after that." At the time, he considered asking her to accompany him on his errands around the Citadel, but decided against it. Now, he wished he had. "Dammit. She could be anywhere by now."

"I hope she's okay," Tali said nervously.

"She's Shepard," Garrus stated, as if that explained everything. "If she's actually in trouble, I feel bad for the other guy."

"Should we call someone?"

Garrus pulled up his omnitool and checked his messages for anything from Shepard or the rest of the crew. Aside from a purchase receipt for the ship model and an advertisement for turian fringe enhancement (which he tossed into the spam folder), there was nothing. _Think, dammit. Think._ "I don't know," he admitted, closing the display. "Shepard's always the one I call in these situations."

"Me, too. _Keelah_ , I don't even know where to start."

"Maybe she just wanted to keep us off her tail for some reason. She might not be in trouble at all."

"Shepard wouldn't sneak around like that unless it was life or death, in which case she would have called you. Or me. Or anyone," she told him, eyes glued to her omnitool. "Has she ever lied to you before? To any of us?"

"No," Garrus said, shaking his head. His thoughts were going at a million miles an hour, trying to sort through this new information. "She's kept secrets, sure, but outright lying? That's not Shepard's style. "

"She has to be in trouble, then."

"No more than usual."

After what felt like hours, the rapid transit skycar finally arrived, setting down soundlessly on the nearby landing pad. Tali and Garrus had to keep themselves from sprinting on their way over to the waiting vehicle. "Docking bay D24, and get there fast," he snapped at the VI, just before closing the door behind them both. Garrus tossed the model ship into the backseat—he decided he would give it to her later, provided there _was_ a later. As the skycar lifted off, both of them opened up their omnitools and started typing frantically.

 _If I were Shepard, where would I be?_

The shooting range, most likely. Or maybe the bistro on the Presidium that served all-day breakfast—the waiters knew her by name at this point, and had her order memorized; six waffles (minimum) with sickly-sweet syrup and three orders of some kind of thinly-sliced meat he couldn't remember the name of, as well as a quart of orange juice and a glass of ice water. Her biotic implant had always required Shepard to eat a minimum of seven thousand calories a day, and her Cerberus upgrades only made her appetite larger. Watching her eat was like watching a thresher maw devour a platoon of soldiers—both grotesque, fascinating, and impressive all at the same time.

He checked the security feeds from that part of the Citadel. Shepard hadn't been seen anywhere on the Presidium today, or so the reports from C-Sec told him. He pulled up the shooting range on his omnitool next and started decrypting their security algorithms. If she hadn't visited the shooting range, then she could be on any one of the wards, in which case it would take hours to find her. Too slow. Always too slow.

Like a needle in a haystack, Shepard always said.

"Jack hasn't seen her," Tali reported sharply, snapping Garrus out of his reverie. His talon accidentally hit a wrong key and the security algorithms tightened up again, locking him out. He cursed under his breath and started over. "Neither has Miranda."

"Keep searching," he told her.

The security feeds finally popped up, revealing nothing out of the ordinary. One Commander Jane M. Shepard had not accessed the firing range for thirty-four days and sixteen hours. He racked his brain for other places Shepard might be, and came up empty. He decided to try to reach the rest of the team like Tali was doing—cover more ground and locate the target faster, his instincts told him.

After a few minutes of spamming the omnitools of the other crewmembers, Garrus growled lowly in his throat. "Jacob hasn't seen her. Massani says he saw her on the ship and she looked pissed about something but he didn't stick around to ask, so that's a dead end."

"Grunt says he's coming back to the _Normandy_ to help look. He'll be there in ten minutes."

"Zaeed's on his way back, too. Is Legion still on the ship? Have him look around until we get there."

"I think he's in sleep mode in the AI core. Let me try EDI."

The pristine landscape of the Presidium raced below them, blurring into a vast swath of mottled greens and blues. In the years Garrus had known Shepard, she had never lied to his face, not _once_. She always told the truth, even if it was horrible and you never wanted to know it—without honesty, without trust, a crew was nothing. She always pushed for that.

"Yes, Tali'Zorah?" EDI's calm voice asked, emanating from both of their comms.

Garrus answered first. He barked, "EDI, we need to find Shepard. Where is she?"

Anybody else would have missed the near-imperceptible pause as EDI thought for a moment, but it did not escape their notice. Garrus felt his plates begin to itch. EDI always gave her answers immediately, no matter what. If she was hesitating, something was wrong. Very, very wrong.

He knew things were about to get worse. It was that damned sixth sense he wished he didn't have.

"I'm afraid that information is classified, Officer Vakarian."

 _Classified._

 _Classified?_

The word held no implication for several all-too-brief moments—classified? What in the world did that even _mean_?—but the realization of her words quickly slammed into him like a rogue wave against a tall, rocky cliff side that was mere seconds away from crumbling into the ocean.

Any doubts about the innocence of the situation suddenly vanished, replaced with the definitive answer Garrus had been dreading: Shepard was either hiding from them for some reason, in which case she had lied to them, and Shepard never, _ever_ lied unless something was seriously wrong; she had been kidnapped, probably by Cerberus or some other faction that had it out for her for some reason or another; or she was… Spirits, he didn't know what else could have happened to her. Garrus wasn't capable of coming up with any other logical solutions. Either Shepard was lying to them or she was in trouble, and both options were bleak.

The skycar hummed quietly, zipping through the air above the Presidium and closer to the docks—not close enough, Garrus thought. He wished he could dismantle the speed limitations on the skycar, but figured that getting arrested wouldn't be helpful at that point. They needed to find Shepard.

"Classified," Tali repeated dumbly, as if she had never said the word out loud before. "Since when is anything on the _Normandy_ classified?"

"I cannot answer that, Miss Tali'Zorah. Is there anything else you require?" EDI at least had the decency to sound regretful, but Garrus could feel his blood racing through his veins as he felt his temper begin to rear its head. He tried his best to tamp it down.

Tali looked at him helplessly, choking and stumbling over her words. "Is—is there anything you can tell us? Anything at all? Please, EDI. We're really worried about Shepard."

"I cannot assist you in that regard. Is there anything else you require of me?"

"Are you _serious_?" Garrus blurted out, suddenly running out of patience. If the AI had a neck, he would've been wringing it. "Shepard might be in danger and you're refusing to help?"

"I am sorry," EDI apologized, and then hesitated ever so slightly. "I cannot inform you of her location…but I _can_ tell you that the Commander is unharmed at this current point in time."

"Oh, very helpful," he snarled.

"My apologies. May I be of any further assistance?"

"No, EDI," Tali said quietly. "Thank you."

"Logging you out, Miss Tali'Zorah."

For several seconds, neither Garrus nor Tali made a single sound. They were stunned, reeling from what EDI had just told them—or, more accurately, had refused to tell them. A small part of Garrus was relieved that Shepard was clearly not in some kind of trouble, otherwise EDI would have definitely told them where the commander was, no holds barred. But what the AI had said rattled around Garrus' mind, repeating itself over and over again until the word sounded like nothing but noise.

 _Classified._

Shepard was hiding from them. She had lied, told them conflicting stories, and gone off on her own to do… _something_. Shepard didn't do things on her own; she believed there was power in numbers. Whatever it was she was of doing, it had to be important, right? There was no way Shepard would do something like this lightly. And yet, no matter how many times Garrus assured himself of this, it never sounded quite true.

They sat in frustrated silence for several moments. The map display on the dashboard of the skycar said they were only fifteen minutes from the _Normandy's_ docking location and closing fast. They both stared out the windows in resignation—there was little else they could do until they reached the ship and started retracing Shepard's footsteps. With a staggering amount of effort, Garrus regulated his breathing and tried to slow his heartrate in an attempt to regain his focus, yet he could not shake the hollow-sounding words that EDI had spoken only moments before.

 _Classified classified classified_

 _Dammit, Shepard. Where are you? I can't—_

"She's going to like that, you know," Tali murmured, breaking the uneasy quiet.

Garrus blinked, emerging from his racing thoughts. He looked at her uncomprehendingly. "What?"

"That little ship model." Tali gestured toward the backseat. Her voice was soft and bespoke her worry about the commander, but she kept her tone steady and unwavering. "She's been looking for that one for a while. How much did it cost?"

Half of Garrus wanted to panic and make up a million excuses why that ship model wasn't for Shepard, but Tali wasn't stupid, nor was she blind. She would never buy it. The other half of his mind was thankful for the distraction she was offering him. "Too much," he admitted.

"One thousand credits?"

"More."

"Two thousand?"

"More."

" _Keelah_ , Garrus," Tali admonished, turning to look at him incredulously (he assumed—that helmet made things difficult). "She's either going to kill you or love you."

He tried to keep his voice level as he forced out a lame excuse. "She bought me that enhanced scope for my rifle a few weeks ago. Figured this is the least I can do."

"I should probably get her something, too. She _did_ keep me from being exiled, after all," she mused. "Humans are big on gift-giving—or Shepard is, at the very least. Any ideas?"

Garrus didn't hesitate. "Socks."

Tali looked at him, head tilting to the side in silent question. "Socks," she repeated flatly, as if she thought he was making a joke.

He nodded, swallowing. "I, uh…I heard her talking about it in the mess hall the other day. Apparently humans put on these weird fabric foot wrappings before they put their shoes on. Some are comfier than others. I guess. I don't know. I'm not an expert."

"Uh-huh," Tali replied, unconvinced. He swore she was fighting down a smile but couldn't be sure since he had never actually seen her mouth before in his life.

He glared at her. "What?"

"Oh, nothing."

" _What_?"

She shrugged, staring out the window on her side of the car. She picked mindlessly at a frayed seam in the seat cushion. "You're about as subtle as a shotgun, Garrus. And a poorly-designed one, at that."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I know that you have feelings for Shepard."

For the first time, Garrus was thankful for Jack's colorful language. Every curse word he knew—turian, human, krogan, and salarian (the asari didn't like to swear)—played on repeat in his mind like a never-ending marathon of noise.

"Feelings?" He tried to fight the panic that was crawling its way up his throat. _She's reaching, she doesn't actually know anything, calm down._ "Nice try, but I don't have a fetish for humans. They're all squishy and—"

"Garrus."

"From a biological standpoint—"

" _Garrus_." She stretched the word out, turning suddenly and flicking his unscarred mandible sharply. She tilted her head to the side, eyes glowing faintly behind her faceplate, slightly narrowed. She was totally onto him.

 _Shit._

Garrus exhaled sharply and collapsed back onto his seat, rubbing his neck awkwardly. "This day just keeps getting better and better," he muttered under his breath. He shot an accusatory look at Tali. "How'd you find out?"

"I've had my suspicions for a while. And before you start yelling, I'm not going to tell anybody."

"You're not?" He raised a browplate—a quirk he'd picked up from Shepard. His voice was laced with skepticism.

"Of course not," she scoffed, waving at him dismissively. "We're friends, Garrus, and while your love life isn't exactly high on my priorities list, I care about Shepard. She deserves to be happy, and I think you could make that happen. You two are… weirdly perfect for each other."

"Thanks, I guess."

"I meant that in the best way possible." she said, turning in her seat to face him. Her eyes were turned up at the edges as she smiled. "Have you told her yet?"

 _We slept together, so that has to count for something. I think._

Garrus pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and groaned, sinking deeper into the seat of the skycar as if it could swallow him whole. At the same time, however, he felt a flooding sense of immense relief. If Tali thought they were perfect together, then that meant Garrus wasn't crazy—he and Shepard really _did_ have something more than weird interspecies physical chemistry.

"We are _not_ talking about this," he muttered sharply. He could feel her eyes on him, watching intently from the sidelines as he struggled with his words. _Oh, what the hell._ "I mean—Spirits, am I _insane_ for even thinking about this? Cross-species is pretty… out there. Even for this galaxy."

Tali chuckled softly and patted his shoulder reassuringly. "No, I don't think you're crazy at all. You guys are best friends, so what's the problem?"

"Things could get complicated if something goes wrong."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's true for any relationship. Ever."

"I'm serious, Tali," he insisted. "She's my C.O. and I can't let this—whatever this is or might be—affect her judgment. Things would be way too complicated."

"That won't happen. You're both too mature for that. Next argument."

"Fraternization is against Alliance regs."

"We just spent the last six months working with Cerberus and you're worried about potentially breaking Alliance rules?" she asked flatly. She rolled her eyes, scoffing softly. "Come on, Garrus. I've never seen you follow a military reg since I've known you, and Shepard isn't exactly a stickler for the rules, either. Next argument."

"Well, she does this thing where she pops her knuckles—"

"Stop," Tali said, holding up a hand. She shuddered. "I actually agree with you on that. One of these days, she's going to rip her fingers off. It's so…"

"Horrifying?"

"Yeah, that about sums it up," she said, shaking her head as if to rid herself of the memories of Shepard's noisy habit. "Now, next argument—unless that was the end of your list?"

He could have given her a thousand different reasons why it would never work between him and Shepard. Ultimately, though, the endless list he'd compiled over the last few weeks all boiled down to one common theme: their friendship. It was the only constant in his life for the past several months. She was always there, always ready to go and save the day with Garrus at her six. It was all so familiar. So real. So _consistent_. Everything else—his squad, his purpose, Sidonis, hell, even himself—had changed irreparably. Garrus was harder, rougher around the edges now, more conscious of the risks he took with his own life because he knew what happened when you didn't pay attention to the little details; _they_ were the real killers, not the bullets or the guns or even the people wielding them, but the _details_. He had seen first-hand the horrors the galaxy had to offer, and somehow managed to come out on the other side of things, alive and kicking-mostly. But he wasn't the same. Not really.

When Shepard came careening back into his life that day on Omega, he knew she was the anchor he had been looking for, the one thing that would tie him to this life, to his purpose. If he lost that…

Well. He didn't really want to make that kind of risk, no matter how calculated.

"She's my best friend," he murmured, glancing out the window of the skycar. He could see the silvery waters of the Presidium race past, rippling in the artificial breeze that Shepard always complained about.

 _Give me a real planet with a real sun and real goddamn wind any day, and don't even get me started on those stupid lakes._

That's what she always told him. He always laughed. She always smiled.

He liked her smile.

With a deep breath, Garrus continued, "I don't want to mess things up. With the Reapers coming, a bad relationship is the last thing Shepard needs. I can't be selfish. There's too much at stake."

Tali sighed softly and inclined her head forward. She peered at him, bright eyes expressionless behind her mask. "You're a lot of things, Garrus, but selfish isn't one of them. You and I both know we're living on borrowed time until the Reapers arrive, and Shepard knows it, too. She should at least know all of her options while she still has the time to consider them."

Tali paused, mulling over her next words. "Look… when you both found me on Haestrom, I remember being jealous of how easy it was for you to fall back in line the way you did. You guys were practically reading each other's minds at that point. It was so _irritating_. And a little bit creepy, if I'm being completely honest. I hated you for it. Later, though, I realized I was angry at myself—not you—for refusing to go with Shepard on Freedom's Progress. I should have believed her, but I couldn't see past the colors she was wearing and her sudden reappearance, no matter how wonderful it seemed. If I had the chance to do it all over again, I'd go with her in a heartbeat. But you," she emphasized, poking his shoulder, "were _there_ for her. All the way from the beginning. You didn't ask questions—"

"I was a little busy bleeding out on the floor," he said dryly.

Tali ignored him. "You just went with her and didn't complain the entire way. You never questioned her decisions unless she asked, and when she did ask the crew, she always asked _you_ first. She took you on every single mission, Garrus. Miranda might have the title, but you're Shepard's X.O., whether you believe it or not. There's no one she trusts more than you. Not even Doctor Chakwas or Joker. It's _you_."

Garrus pondered Tali's words. She had a point—he was the one she always came to when she wasn't sure about something, and Miranda always sent him death glares because of it. Still, he wasn't convinced. "I don't know," he told her, dragging out the last word. "It's still pretty risky."

"Asking her out to dinner is risky?" Tali asked, clearly unimpressed. She rolled her eyes and muttered something Garrus' translator didn't catch before turning back to him, her eyes narrowed. "This is Shepard we're talking about. You could take her out to the shooting range and feed her nutri-paste through a straw all night and she'd still have a great time with you. She's a person who deserves to be happy, just like anybody else, and you have the chance to make her happy. Dammit, Garrus, pull yourself together and ask her out to dinner!"

"It sounds so normal when you put it like that—"

"Because it _is_ normal," she stressed.

"It's still hard to reconcile the whole turian-human thing, though."

Tali threw her hands up in the air, exasperated. "It's not like you're the first cross-species couple. I think you should count yourself lucky, Garrus. I don't exactly understand human aesthetics, but from what I understand, she's beautiful. Just think of her as a not-so-blue asari and you'll be fine."

"I know she's beautiful. It's not that."

"Then _what_?"

"You know how close she was with Alenko back on the SR-1," Garrus muttered. He could see the docking bay in the distance, closing fast. They didn't have long. "He's always going to have the advantage that he's human and I'm not. I wouldn't blame her if she chose him—providing he pulls his head out of his ass about the whole Cerberus affiliation, of course."

"I read the report on Horizon," she said, shaking her head. "I still can't believe Kaidan treated her like that."

"I considered shooting him. I think Shepard did, too."

"I don't think she'd go back to him, though. Not after something like that. Besides, have you ever known Shepard to take the easy way out?"

"No," Garrus admitted. "I guess you're right."

"Could you say that again? I'd like to get a recording of it."

"Don't push it, Tali."

###

The skycar descended slowly toward the empty tarmac next to the docking bay. The waiting area was mostly empty except for a few C-Sec officers who were milling around and a Keeper who was working over in the far corner of the room. No one spared them a glance as they landed and spilled out of the skycar, leaving so quickly that Garrus almost forgot the model ship in the backseat. With it tucked safely under one arm, he and Tali marched toward the door that would lead them up to the airlock of the ship.

As they stepped on board and walked toward the galaxy map, Garrus gestured toward the lab that had been abandoned by Mordin earlier in the week. "Take the emergency hatch down to the shuttle bay and work your way up. I'll head up to Shepard's cabin and look around. We'll meet in the middle."

She shot him a withering look as they came around the side of the galaxy map to stand in front of the elevator. "Why am _I_ always the one who gets shoved in cramped spaces? It's only been two weeks and I'm still having nightmares about those vents."

"You're the only one that fits," he shot back, pressed the button to call the elevator. "Now get going. Ping me if you find anything."

Tali muttered something about stubborn turians and stormed off toward the lab. Garrus ignored her. The elevator doors slid open and he pressed the button for Shepard's cabin. For once, the elevator went faster than usual—must have been something the engineers had repaired during the retrofit, he thought. Before he knew it, Garrus was keying open Shepard's door and stepping past the threshold…

…into a complete war zone.

* * *

 **Edited: 4/29/17 Much love to you all.**


	3. Chapter 2

Garrus had never known Shepard to be a neat freak, but she didn't like messes, either. Sure, she cleaned her armor and shotgun after every mission. She made her bed each morning before breakfast. She folded her shirts crisply, wore matching socks, and never left dirty dishes in her room after a long night of writing up mission reports. She refused to keep anything more sentimental than the tags around her neck. These were typical habits of a soldier, drilled into her since basic.

Which is why Garrus was so shocked to find her quarters in its current state.

 _What the hell happened in here?_ The glass that had once encased her collection of model ships had been violently shattered into thousands of pieces that now covered every visible surface of the room. Her ship models had been blown out of their case and were piled haphazardly on Shepard's unmade bed, still intact but a little worse for wear; the _Destiny Ascension_ in particular had taken quite a beating. Every drawer in the room was open and had been ransacked and emptied of their contents. Garrus noticed the door to her bathroom had a large dent and looked like it had been kicked partially in. In all the chaos that surrounded him, it took him a few moments to find Shepard.

She was standing at the bottom of the steps, wearing full armor and looking exceedingly unfriendly. Her hair was tied up—or, it was _supposed_ to be; several sections were escaping their confines and curled softly around the sharp lines of her face. She had a half-zipped duffel bag slung over her shoulder.

The worst part, though, was that Shepard was pointing a pistol unwaveringly at the space between his eyes.

This was _not_ how he'd expected his day to go.

Garrus blinked and shuffled his feet, clearing his throat. Glass crunched beneath his boots. "Commander, are you—"

"I need you to leave," she hissed. Her icy tone shocked him for a moment, but Garrus knew Shepard's voice well enough to catch the edge of desperation beneath her words. She was pleading, _begging_ for him to turn around and forget everything he saw. And Commander Shepard didn't beg.

Something was wrong. The turian part of his brain told him to drop everything and follow her orders, but he knew he couldn't turn around and leave Shepard to her own devices (whatever they happened to be). He couldn't. Not when she was acting like this. Everything screamed _wrongness_ to him: the tense line of her shoulders, her disheveled appearance, the fact that she was pointed a damned gun at him. He had to get her under control before her fluctuating biotics blew out a bulkhead or something—Joker would be super pissed.

Garrus had never been on the receiving end of Shepard's gun and he was slowly discovering that it was not an enjoyable place to be. (No wonder she was good at making full-grown mercenaries cry—she was _terrifying_.) Tentatively, Garrus shifted the Kodiak's box underneath his arm and slowly bent down to place it on the floor at his feet. He tried to look as unthreatening as possible as he did so. Her pistol followed him as he straightened back up and he suppressed a shudder at the way she was scrutinizing him. Like he was just an obstacle she had to get past one way or another.

Like he was disposable. Like he was the _enemy_.

Slowly, he raised his hands. Shepard's steely grey eyes narrowed dangerously, and he saw her index finger shift toward the trigger at the movement, but she wasn't close enough to touch it. He knew she could put him down in half a second, regardless of where her finger was, but he knew she was giving him the benefit of the doubt. The thought did little to comfort him.

"Shepard," Garrus said, taking a hesitant step forward. He stopped moving when her fingers tightened over the grip of the pistol. "Come on, you're going to shoot me?"

"Concussive rounds," she bit out. "But that all depends on you."

"I'm not letting you leave without an explanation."

"Then I don't have a choice."

"You have plenty of choices. Most of them involve dropping the goddamn pistol so we can have a nice, long chat over a bottle of wine."

"Not going to happen."

"Which part? The part where you drop your gun or the part where we drink wine? It doesn't have to be wine, you know."

"I'm being serious, Garrus."

"So am I," Garrus shot back. "Spirits, Shepard. You're looking at me like I'm a total stranger." He didn't bother to hide the hurt in his subvocals. Not even ten hours had passed since he'd last seen her; she'd laughed quietly at something stupid Joker told her over breakfast in the mess hall. He remembered seeing her eyes crinkle around the edges the way he liked so much.

Now, she was acting like a cornered varren.

"We're not doing this, Garrus," Shepard insisted, clenching her jaw. Blue sparks were jumping across the plates of her armor and the grey of her eyes was beginning to glow ever so slightly. Recognizing the flare in her temper, he froze in place and tried a different approach. He wasn't sure her cabin could withstand another surge from her biotics and didn't want to test that theory.

"I need you to breathe," he instructed gently, taking another hesitant step forward. "I don't know what's going on, but you're not thinking straight, Commander."

"Stand down, Vakarian," she ordered through gritted teeth. "I mean it."

"Talk to me," Garrus pleaded, softening his subvocals. "Tell me what's going on."

A flash of pain crossed her face, so brief he almost missed it. She _wanted_ to talk to him. But something was holding her back. Garrus had never seen Shepard take more than ten seconds to deliberate on anything; from ordering take-out to blowing up massive space stations, she was _never_ torn over a decision. For the first time since he'd known her, Shepard looked completely uncertain.

The moment passed, however, and Shepard's face hardened once again. She shook her head stiffly and more tendrils of hair fell loosely around her face as she said, "I can't. You're just going to have to trust me, okay?"

"It's a little hard to trust you when you're pointing a gun at me, Shepard."

"I don't want to use it," she shot back fervently. She exhaled deeply and her eyelids drifted shut, screwing up her face in pain as she finished quietly, "Just…get out of the way, all right? Forget you saw me here and _move_."

"Is that an order?"

Garrus felt a pang of regret the second he said the words, but he knew they were necessary. He remembered a conversation they'd had a few weeks after he joined her on the SR-2 in the dim lighting of the main battery, just the two of them.

* * *

" _I don't think I'll ever get used to seeing the Cerberus logo," Garrus remarked, tapping away at the Thanix cannon's main console. Shepard was sitting on the floor next to the entrance to the battery, scrolling through a datapad that held more dossiers from the Illusive Man. The door was locked behind them both. A little peace and quiet, she'd told him. That was all she needed._

 _Shepard hummed quietly and continued scrolling through the information listlessly. Without looking up, she murmured, "Tell me about it. I'd give my left arm to have my Alliance uniform back."_

" _I don't think Miranda would be happy that. She went to all that trouble to build that left arm, you know."_

" _You say that like I'm supposed to care what she thinks. This damned uniform isn't even machine washable, Garrus. And white has never been my color. Or yellow, for that matter."_

" _You're more of a black and red person, if I recall."_

" _You recall correctly."_

 _Shepard sighed and dimmed the display on her datapad, setting it off to the side. When she drew her knees up to her chest, Garrus spared her a glance—she looked troubled about something. Feeling bold, he asked, "Something on your mind, Commander?"_

 _Her eyebrows drew in close and the corners of her mouth turned down, stretching the glowing orange scars that marred the smooth skin of her face. "If I ask you something, will you answer honestly?"_

" _As if I'm capable of lying to my own commanding officer. I'm a bad turian, Shepard, but I'm not_ that _bad."_

 _When she didn't immediately reply with some kind of sharp retort or even a soft chuckle, Garrus stopped typing. He turned around to look at Shepard. She was scowling, staring off at some invisible point at the other end of the main battery._

" _Is everything all right?" he asked. Worry prickled at the back of his mind._

" _Have I ever given you any bad orders before?"_

 _Garrus blinked. Part of him wanted to say no, of course not. Another part of him wanted to answer honestly because she was his friend. His only friend. He decided to go with honesty._

 _Garrus rubbed the back of his neck and admitted, "I wouldn't call them_ bad _orders, but I don't always agree with every single one of your decisions. You always prove me wrong in the end, though."_

" _Can you give me an example?"_

" _Uh…" Garrus wracked his brain. "The rachni queen on Noveria, I guess. I don't think you should have released her, but we haven't heard from the rachni since then. Like I said, you always end up being right. It's a little scary, actu—"_

" _Do you think you'd be able to tell if I gave you a bad order?"_

 _She said it so directly that it caught him off guard. She was looking at him, her grey eyes shining with an emotion Garrus didn't fully recognize. Warily, Garrus regarded her and asked, "Shepard, you're starting to worry me. What's this about?"_

 _She exhaled through her teeth and leaned her head back against the wall, exposing the smooth, pale column of her neck. He could see glowing circuitry through her skin and tried not to stare. After a few moments of silence, Shepard finally murmured, "I keep thinking about Kaidan. On Horizon, I mean."_

 _Suddenly, Garrus felt very uncomfortable. He knew the commander's history with the lieutenant and their encounter with Alenko on Horizon had been…awkward and infuriating. For everyone involved, he knew, but especially for Shepard. She pretended she was fine afterwards, insisting that they focus on the mission and picking up more people for the cause, but he knew she was still reeling from Kaidan's harsh words. Garrus just didn't know how to help without reopening the half-closed wound._

 _Garrus knew that Shepard never talked about her personal feelings about anyone. Not even her platonic affections for Garrus, although she'd let it slip a little bit after the whole rocket-to-the-face incident down on Omega. Shepard showed her attachment in different ways: through stupid jokes, half-smiles, and her conversations with each of her crewmembers after a mission. She cared about all of them more than she let on—she just never talked about it so plainly. Which is why Garrus was struggling to find words._

 _He shifted his weight from foot to foot and coughed awkwardly. "Uh, well—I'm not exactly in a position to comment on your relationship with Alenko, but—"_

 _Shepard waved him off, shaking her head. "It has nothing to do with that."_

" _Oh." Garrus fought back the urge to sigh with relief. "Which part are you talking about, then?"_

 _Shepard entwined her fingers and bit the inside of her cheek, frowning. She avoided his eyes. "I guess I'm having doubts. About myself, I mean. My ability to make clear-headed decisions."_

 _Oh. Now he knew what was bothering her. "You're worried the reconstruction changed you somehow."_

 _She flinched at his words, but managed a nod. "Maybe Kaidan was right. How can I possibly know if I'm making my own decisions of if Cerberus is making them for me? What if I'm just an obscenely expensive puppet for the Illusive Man?"_

" _I would know."_

" _Would you?" Shepard shot back, meeting his gaze with ferocity. "Would you really?"_

" _Absolutely," he said with conviction. "I know you, Shepard."_

 _She scoffed, stretching her legs out in front of her. "Everyone thinks that until they realize they don't know me at all. Miranda might have my inseam memorized down to a tenth of a centimeter, but I guarantee she doesn't know what my favorite color is."_

" _Orange," Garrus remarked flatly._

 _Shepard's head snapped up and she looked at him with raised eyebrows, clearly surprised. "How the hell did you know that?"_

 _He shrugged. "Like I said, I know you, Shepard. And I would be able to recognize if you weren't…well,_ you _. The second I saw you on Omega, I had no doubts. You fight the same way as before and you're still stubborn as hell when you know you're right about something. You even pop your knuckles the same way you used to. And let me tell you, that's one habit I wish they hadn't let you keep."_

" _You and everybody else," she muttered, lifting a hand up. She cracked her index finger obnoxiously and smirked up at him._

 _Garrus shot her a withering look. "Disgusting."_

" _Old habits—"_

" _Die hard," he finished, smirking. "Yeah, I know. You always told me that back on the SR-1 every time I complained about your noisy fingers. I know you remember." He paused, nudging one of her feet with his boot and finishing, "Look, if you weren't acting like the Commander Shepard I knew two years ago, do you really think I'd be here?"_

 _Shepard's smile melted away, replaced with an unreadable expression. She regarded him intently. Garrus tried not to fidget under her scrutiny—Shepard's direct attention was practically a force of nature with her sharp, almost predatory gaze. She searched his face for anything he was holding back, anything at all. Finding nothing, Shepard nodded slowly and the corners of her mouth quirked up slightly. "That…makes me feel a lot better, actually. Thanks."_

" _Any time, Shepard."_

 _Slowly, she clambered to her feet and snatched her datapad off the floor. She still had that unreadable expression on her face—Garrus would have to do some research on that one—but she seemed much happier than before. More comfortable, like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Garrus was glad he was capable of making her feel better. It was the least he could do for her, after all. She'd saved his ass more times than he could count, and if this is how he could say thank you, he'd give her pep talks a thousand times over. She probably needed them more than anybody else._

 _As Shepard reached for the lock on the door, she paused. Turning around, she met his eyes with determination. "I have a new assignment for you, Vakarian."_

" _Yes, ma'am." He straightened up at her militant tone. It was a far cry from the warmth she'd exuded earlier, but it wasn't unfriendly by any means._

" _You've got a permanent place on my ground squad from here on out. If you ever see me make a bad call or do anything out of the ordinary, you have my full permission to call me on my bullshit. Understood?"_

 _Garrus was stunned. He knew how much Shepard liked to rotate her squad—they needed to practice their teamwork and stay sharp, she'd told him—so it was extremely strange to be a permanent fixture in the group. Still, he couldn't say no to her. No one knew her fighting style like he did, and they balanced each other's strengths and weaknesses well._ Exceedingly _well. "Understood."_

" _Be ready at 0800. We're picking up an assassin and an asari justicar on Illium." She turned to leave._

" _Will do. And Shepard?" She paused as the door unlocked and slid open, glancing back over her shoulder at Garrus. She raised an eyebrow expectantly._

" _I'll watch your six."_

* * *

Garrus' words still hung in the air between them. He knew Shepard was remembering the same conversation he was—and how he had permission to ignore direct orders if she wasn't thinking clearly. She stared at him, her expression stricken.

Her gun wavered ever so slightly and she stumbled over her words. "I—no. No, it's not an order. I'm asking you as…as a friend. Please, Garrus."

He exhaled, regarding Shepard closely. He knew he couldn't let her leave without an explanation, but he really didn't feel like getting in a fistfight with his C.O. and almost-girlfriend, either. He didn't know what was going on with Shepard, but he knew it had to be bad if she was acting so…psychotic? Unbalanced? Maybe that wasn't the best word to use, but he couldn't think of anything better under the circumstances.

Garrus squared his shoulders and pressed his mandibles close to his face, staring Shepard down as best he could. "Sorry, but you're not leaving until you either shoot me or explain what the hell is going on. The entire crew is scouring the Citadel for you and Tali is working her way up here as we speak. Either you talk to me now or you can talk to everyone else when they eventually track you down." He paused. "It's your call, Shepard."

She froze and her eyes sharpened, flashing with rage that would have sent anyone else running for the hills; Garrus didn't budge, though. He glared right back at her. He had no idea what was going on or why she was pointing a pistol at his face, but he didn't care at that point.

Shepard versus Vakarian. Clash of the titans.

(He secretly hoped that Shepard hadn't cut EDI's feeds to her cabin; this would make an awesome vid, providing she didn't straight-up murder him on the spot.)

They stood across from each other, knees bent and unflinching as they waited for the other person to make a move. He noticed that Shepard's finger was still resting just shy of the trigger—she still didn't want to shoot him, regardless of what she was saying. He could try to disarm her...but the last person who'd tried that ended up having their legs blown off with a missile launcher.

Still, it was the only option he had. All he had to do was wait for the right moment to strike.

He didn't have to wait very long. Uncharacteristically, Shepard's eyes darted toward the box next to his feet. Her eyebrows knit together in confusion when she saw what it was, but by the time she looked back up at Garrus to ask about it, he was already in motion.

 _Sorry, Shepard,_ he thought grimly.

His talons closed around her wrist and jerked it at a sharp angle until he heard her hiss through her teeth in pain. The pistol clattered to the floor below both of them and Garrus kicked it across the room and out of reach of both of them. He only had a millisecond to feel good about himself (He'd just disarmed the savior of the galaxy—take that, Blasto!) before he heard her duffel bag drop to the floor and she snarled something his translator didn't pick up.

"Okay," he said breathlessly, feeling significantly more relaxed now that Shepard couldn't shoot him. "How about we—"

Her elbow cracked against his chin and his head snapped back so hard that his vision swam with he felt her arm slide up behind his and she began to pull in an attempt to dislocate his shoulder, he desperately yanked on Shepard's wrist to dislodge her hold. He managed to pull her off balance long enough to deal a powerful right hook that landed directly on one of her sharp cheekbones. Garrus heard her cry out and her arm was ripped from his grasp abruptly as she slammed into the glass of her fish tank and crumpled to the floor.

Garrus kept his guard up, not entirely trusting her to hop up and stab him with a shard of glass, but slowly uncoiled when he noticed that she wasn't moving. _Crap._ Had he really hit her that hard? He knew humans were soft, but Shepard wasn't exactly a typical human; she should have been able to withstand a solid punch like that. Dread crept up his spine and he crouched low to check on her. She was breathing, he noticed with relief. Carefully, he moved the curtain of hair that was hanging limply over her eyes—her gaze wasn't directed at Garrus, though. Instead, her eyes were as wide as saucers and trained on the small box sitting two feet away from them—the model Kodiak. Blood was dripping from the split skin over her cheekbone but she didn't seem to care. Her expression was indecipherable.

Several beats of silence passed them by before Shepard snapped out of it. She turned and leaned her head back against the wall, squeezing her eyes shut as if in pain (which she probably was). "Shit."

"Are you okay?" Garrus asked softly. He reached for her duffel bag and pulled out one of her t-shirts, pressing it gently against the trail of garish red blood that was slowly dripping down her cheek. "I didn't want to hit you, but it looked like my only option.

She shrugged, slumping her shoulders. She suddenly looked very tired. "If I really wanted to, I could've dodged it."

"I know. But you didn't,"

"No," she agreed, sighing. "I didn't."

They sat in silence for a few moments as Garrus held the shirt to her swollen cheek. He placed a talon underneath her chin and lifted her face so he could look at her properly and check for a concussion in case she'd hit her head on the way down. Her pupils dilated normally, thank the Spirits.

All of the anger had drained out of her eyes, leaving an exhausted, empty shell of Shepard that Garrus wasn't sure what to do with. He'd seen her angry, disturbed, frustrated, blindingly happy—but he'd never seen Shepard look so _lost_ before. His stomach knotted with guilt over hitting her, but he was also glad that he had done it. With one simple punch, she was back to normal.

"I'm sorry," she said. Her grey eyes were the color of dark storm clouds now, not razor-sharp steel like before. Her eyebrows furrowed and she actually looked ashamed for once. "Jesus, I am _so_ sorry. I lost my mind back there."

"A little," Garrus admitted. "You had me worried for a bit. I've never been on the other end of your gun before."

"I wasn't going to shoot you," she murmured, leaning into the blood-stained shirt he held. He could almost feel the warmth of her skin through the thin fabric.

"I know."

"I'm sorry."

"Shepard, it's okay," he assured her, flaring his mandibles in a small smile. "Besides, I just won a fistfight against the great Commander Shepard. I'll be bragging about that one until the day I die."

"You know I could kick your ass if I wanted to, right?"

"Shh," he chastised lightly, placing a talon over her lips. "Let me have this one."

She rolled her eyes and the corners of her mouth quirked up in that way Garrus liked so much. He was glad Shepard was acting more like herself again (read: not murderous), but he still had a lot of unanswered questions for her. Why was her cabin in ruins? Why was she packed up and ready to jump ship? Why had she threatened to _shoot him_?

Garrus didn't want to push her too hard since the subject seemed to be so sensitive and raw, but he couldn't let this slip by unexplained. The emotional walls that always seemed to follow her were temporarily dismantled—fractured enough for him to glimpse what lay beyond through the hairline cracks. But Garrus knew that one wrong move could send them back to square one. He had to tread lightly.

Once the bleeding stopped, Garrus brushed away some of the jagged glass shards on the floor and sat next to her, leaning his back against the wall below the fish tank and bumping her gently with his shoulder. She nudged him in return and didn't pull away, choosing instead to lean heavily against him.

"Is that for me?" Shepard asked quietly, pointing at the box for the Kodiak model.

Garrus chuckled and reached over to grab it. "Yes, actually. I think it's the only one you're missing." He held it out to her.

"I looked for this one for months," she breathed, taking the box from him. She turned it over in her hands, staring at the image on the front. "I don't want to think about how much it cost you. But, after what just happened…I feel like I don't really deserve it."

"It's over and that's what matters."

"I forgot how hard you hit when you're not pulling your punches," she remarked wryly, setting the Kodiak off to the side. She reached up and massaged her jaw. "Damn. I think you knocked one of my teeth loose."

"You tried to dislocate my shoulder," Garrus said flatly. "And your face isn't exactly as squishy as it looks. Let's call it even."

"Fair enough." Shepard shrugged. A look of remorse darkened her face suddenly and she elbowed him softly. "I really am sorry, you know."

"You could make it up to me," Garrus suggested, attempting to sound casual. _Come on, take the bait._

Shepard sighed and ran an armored hand through her hair, which had long since come loose (her fingers immediately got tangled in the forest of wavy tendrils and she grimaced as she tried to pull them free). "You want to know why I blew up my cabin and tried to kill you."

It wasn't a question. For once, Garrus was glad that Shepard could practically read his mind. It made the difficult conversations _so_ much easier. He nodded slowly, massaging his bruised knuckles, and murmured, "I've never seen you like that, Shepard. Scared the hell out of me."

Shepard stiffened next to him and remained carefully silent, the only sound in the room emanating from the fish tank behind them. He could tell she was conflicted, but her eyes were completely unreadable. He could see her turning her words over and over again in her head, trying to figure out what to say.

When she didn't say anything else, he nudged her shoulder with his. "Are you still in there somewhere?"

"Yeah, I'm thinking," she muttered, biting the inside of her cheek. "I, uh. I haven't ever said this stuff out loud to anyone, so I'm trying to organize my thoughts."

"Whatever it is, it can't be that bad."

"It's…personal."

In every conversation they'd ever had, Shepard had only mentioned her personal life a handful of times, and even then she used terms that he'd only realized were vague after the conversation had moved on. She was clever at disguising her words like that. Garrus knew that she'd grown up on Earth and ran with some kind of small-time gang in a large city before enlisting at eighteen—that was all in her file—but that was the full extent of Garrus' knowledge on the subject of Shepard's past. She never talked about herself like that. If someone brought it up, she deflected and changed the subject. Keeping secrets came as naturally as breathing for her.

Garrus didn't know about her family, her home life, or her childhood; he knew what kind of pistol she preferred and how she took her coffee. That was good enough for him.

Or, it _had_ been good enough for him. Now that Garrus cared about her (really, _really_ cared about her), he found himself longing to know the more intimate details of her life. Garrus would never ask her directly, though. They were her secrets and it was her prerogative to share or keep everything to herself, like she always did. He knew it. The crew knew it. So nobody ever pushed.

With a sharp intake of breath, Shepard clambered to her feet and walked toward her bed, reaching for the clasps on her armor. She kept her back to him as she discarded the pieces of her hardsuit into organized piles on the rumpled sheets, one by one.

When Shepard finally spoke, she was so quiet that Garrus' translator struggled to make sense of her words.

"What?" he asked, not quite hearing her. He stood up and walked over to stand behind her and slightly to the left like he always did in the field—pure habit, but standing anywhere else felt wrong, somehow. When he saw her scrabbling uselessly at the final clasp on her chestplate, he slipped his talons beneath the catch and deftly released it for her.

"Thanks," she said quietly, shucking the chestplate off so she was left in her black mesh undersuit and boots. (He always forgot how small she looked out of her armor. The corded muscle that ran beneath the sturdy fabric betrayed her slight frame, however; Shepard was deadly no matter what she was wearing.) Still avoiding his eyes, she hugged her arms across her stomach and began to pace back and forth, boots crunching sharply against the myriad of broken glass that covered the floor around her bed. Garrus waited for her to say something.

"I asked if you've read my file," she repeated. Her eyebrows were drawn close together in deep thought.

Garrus shrugged, not seeing a reason to deny it. "Of course I have. Everyone's read it."

Grimacing, she nodded slowly, coming to a stop in front of her ransacked drawers and armor customization display, which was flickering unsteadily. "EDI," she called out, "cut the feeds to my cabin until I give the word, okay?"

"Of course, Shepard. Logging you out."

Trepidation began building in the pit of Garrus' stomach as he stared at the sharp lines of her shoulder blades beneath her bodysuit. He wondered if maybe, just maybe, he shouldn't be privy to whatever it was she was hiding. Perhaps it really wasn't his business after all. The other half of his brain was excited to learn about Shepard's personal life for the first time (he was also excited to know that EDI had been recording their fight earlier—he was going to need a copy of that vid).

Shepard turned in place and met his gaze head-on. "You know that I grew up on Earth," she explained, shifting her weight from foot to foot. "I was part of the Tenth Street Reds—a shitty name, I know, but we didn't exactly vote on it."

"I remember." He did, actually. He remembered the unpleasant man outside of Chora's Den who'd recognized Shepard. He also remembered the look of sheer panic that'd crossed her face for the briefest of moments when he called out to her—something he never saw again until the day Shepard found him on Omega, covered in his own blood and gasping for breath.

It took a lot to worry Shepard. It took even more to scare her, so whatever this situation was, it was huge. Bigger-than-Reapers _huge_.

Shepard began to pace once again, brushing his shoulder as she slipped past him. Garrus sat down on the edge of the bed and followed her with his eyes. She continued stiffly, "I got a message from the Reds about two hours ago. They just found out that I'm alive again."

"All right," Garrus said slowly, not understand what the big deal was.

"They want me to come back to Earth for negotiations."

"Negotiations for what?"

Shepard stopped pacing. Her shoulders tensed and she turned back to face him, her grey eyes clouded with anger, desperation, and pure, unadulterated _fear_.

"The Reds…they've got my brother, Garrus. I have seven days to get planetside before they kill him."

* * *

 **A little short, but necessary. Please drop a review so I know how I'm doing.**


	4. Chapter 3

**Incredible response to the last chapter! I love you all more than you realize. Please drop me a line at the end of this-I will respond!**

* * *

"You have a _brother_?" Garrus asked, not quite believing the words out of his own mouth. He tried not to look surprised and failed miserably. "But your file—"

"I know what it says," Shepard said, as if she hadn't just dropped a bombshell on Garrus. Her shoulders were straighter now and her face had hardened once again, indicating a business-as-usual attitude. Like they were talking about the weather and not the secret brother of _Commander Shepard._ She continued flatly, "My file is wrong. I worked hard to keep it that way."

"You forged it?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"That's… _extremely_ illegal," Garrus said slowly. "I feel like I should be arresting you on principle."

"Pot, meet kettle." She gave him a flat look. " _Archangel_."

Garrus sighed exasperatedly. "All right, fair enough. We've both had our issues with the law. I still don't understand why you had to forge them, though."

"I did what I had to do when I left Earth. I had to keep him safe."

"From what?"

"That's not the issue, Vakarian. The point I'm trying to make is that I have a goddamn _week_ to make it to Earth, figure out where they're holding my brother, and break him out before they start taking his fingers off with bolt cutters." She paused. "Which they might be doing already, now that I think about it."

"You have a brother," Garrus repeated dumbly. He wasn't even sure why he was so surprised—for all he knew, she could have six other siblings and a habit of knitting sweaters in her spare time.

Shepard nodded and began to pace slowly, deliberately. Her boots crunched across the glass shards that littered the floor of her cabin. "His name's Nathan Shepard, but he prefers Nate. He's a few years younger than me."

"Any other family? Parents?"

Shepard steps faltered briefly before resuming. Her eyes shifted to the floor. "Our parents aren't around anymore. First Contact War, second push for Shanxi. Don't remember much about them."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Like I said, I don't really remember them."

Garrus rubbed his damaged mandible and looked at the ceiling in exasperation. "So, this human gang has your brother and we've got seven days to find him."

"Not _we_ ," Shepard corrected, shaking her head. "Me. If I bring anyone, they'll know it and they'll kill him on the spot. I can't risk it."

"We'll argue about that on the way to Earth," he shot back, electing to ignore the glare she sent his way that said _not going to happen, asshole_. She opened her mouth to say as much but Garrus held up a hand to silence her. "Tell me more about the situation before you start yelling, all right? What are their demands?"

"Me," she replied shortly. "Just me."

That struck Garrus as odd. Usually kidnappers asked for money or something along those lines—he'd never seen them ask for another person in exchange. He managed to ask, "Why would they want you? It's been years since you left Earth."

"It's…complicated."

"Of course it is," he muttered, rubbing a hand over his face. He felt a headache coming on. "Look, Shepard, if you want me to help you, you're going to have to give me a little more information than that."

Shepard pinched the bridge of her nose and exhaled slowly. She sat down on the edge of the bed next to Garrus, purposely avoiding his line of sight.

Her voice was tense as she explained, "When I left the Reds, I took Nate with me. I didn't exactly leave on the best terms and, before you ask, _no_ , I'm not going to tell you what happened. It's not something I enjoy reliving. Anyway, I did what I could to keep Nate hidden after we left the city—changed his name, put him in the custody of a friend of ours, and ran like hell out to the countryside. The usual stuff that makes a person disappear. They've been looking for us ever since." She paused, frowning. "Well, mainly me. But Nate's the one who lives on Earth, so he's easiest to find."

"When's the last time you spoke to him?"

"Twelve years ago."

Garrus blinked at Shepard. "Twelve _years_?"

She shrugged and stared at the broken glass on the floor. "He didn't agree with my decision to join the Alliance. We both said some pretty awful things to each other and I haven't seen him since. I've kept an eye on him, though."

"Spirits, Shepard," Garrus breathed, his brain playing catch-up with her words. "You're really in a tight spot here."

"I know," she agreed, turning to look at him with desperation in her eyes. "Look, I'm not asking you to understand it all, but I could really use your help to get off the _Normandy_ without being seen. Please, Garrus."

"And if I say no?"

"Would you?"

As if he _could_ say no to her, he thought sardonically. Shepard never asked for much from any of the crew—go _here_ , shoot _this_ , blow _that_ up—and tended to move entire planets if it meant helping any of them out. No matter what it was, Shepard would always turn the ship around and take care of it. Her crew always came first. No exceptions.

Garrus also wanted to meet her brother, strangely enough. If there were two Shepards in the galaxy, the Reapers would definitely run away at the first sight of them. (It almost made Garrus shudder to think about. _Two Shepards. Spirits save us all.)_

"All right," Garrus agreed, trying to sound as if he hadn't planned on helping Shepard since the second he'd walked in the room. Her eyes lit up and she opened her mouth to say something, but he cut her off. "I have one condition, though."

"I'll buy you that M-98 Widow, if that's what you're asking. I was going to do it anyway."

"Tempting, but no," Garrus said reluctantly—he _really_ wanted that rifle. Pulling himself out of fantasies of himself at the shooting range with the M-98 under his arm, he finished, "I want you to tell everyone else what's going on. You know they're going to ask questions. Hell, they're worried enough as it is." He paused. As an afterthought, Garrus added, "You also have to take me with you. I guess that makes two conditions."

"No." Shepard stood up and regarded him, arms crossed resolutely. He knew that stance—the one that said " _I'm not budging on this"_ that she pulled out for diplomats who were being particularly uncooperative. It was weird to see it used on him.

"Give me one good reason why not," he argued, his tone verging on flat-out insubordination that made his turian instincts cringe. He hoped he didn't take it too far with Shepard. She was his C.O., first and foremost.

"I'll give you a thousand if you find me a piece of paper and a pencil."

"Who uses pencils anymore?"

"I'm being serious. You can't come with me."

"No, Shepard. _I'm_ being serious," Garrus said, standing up. He looked down at her, matching her steely gaze and hoping his height gave him a menacing advantage. "You're too emotionally compromised to tackle this on your own. You need at least one person with you; it doesn't even have to be me, but you have to bring _someone_. As for the crew, they'd offer to help if you asked them. You know that."

"I don't want them involved."

"Tell me why."

"No."

"Shepard," Garrus warned lowly.

For a second, Garrus thought she would keep arguing in typical fashion. Shepard _never_ backed down if she thought she was right about something. Not ever. It was what made her such a great commander and such a huge pain in the ass for politicians for didn't feel like listening to her.

Which is why Garrus was surprised to see her exhale deeply as resignation crossed her face. She rubbed her temples, admitting quietly, "It's my fault that Nate's in this mess, all right? I need to be the one to get him out of it. Besides, it hasn't even been a week since I dragged you all through hell and back again. It's not my place to ask any more of the crew. Or you, for that matter."

"I was going to ask to remain on the _Normandy_ anyway," Garrus admitted, shrugging.

 _That_ got a reaction out of her. Shepard looked up at him sharply, eyeing him with what appeared to be skepticism. She scrutinized him closely. Had she really not expected him to stay? "Why?" she asked. "Don't get me wrong, it'd be nice to keep you on board, but don't you have family back on Palaven? You've probably got other responsibilities."

"I do, but my family doesn't have any life-or-death situations that need my attention right now. Besides, my sister's probably going to put me on laundry duty for the rest of my life as a punishment for dropping out of contact for two years. I'm not exactly racing to get home."

That earned a small smile from Shepard. Garrus felt his heartbeat lurch as the corners of her eyes crinkled and the flecks of gold in her eyes brightened ever so slightly. She was coming around. "What's so bad about laundry?"

"It's the _worst_ ," he said, cringing. "I never sort the colors correctly and I always shrink at least one shirt in every load. Solana used to yell at me all the time."

Shepard chuckled softly and reached up to tuck a stray tendril of hair behind her ear, which Garrus watched in fascination. Shepard's hair had always captivated him for some reason. During the night they spent together, he was pretty sure he'd spent at least an hour simply running his talons through the silky strands.

"If you really want to stay," she said quietly, breaking him out of his reverie. "I'll allow it."

"I want to stay," he said firmly.

Shepard sighed and looked up at him with a grateful smile, her eyes betraying the wave of relief that was crashing over her. "Thank you," she murmured.

"Someone needs to stick around to call you on your bullshit," he retorted softly, smirking.

"You really want to go to Earth with me, don't you?"

"I do. But… it's your call, Shepard."

Garrus knew she was deliberating. She searched his eyes thoroughly, biting the inside of her cheek as she weighed the pros and cons in her head. She didn't want to bring him for some reason—he wasn't sure what it was, but the fact that the Reds might kill her brother couldn't have been the only reason involved. Shepard brought a team on missions even if they weren't needed. He didn't care what the reason was, though. She needed him to be there to keep her head on straight, to not get too emotionally invested. Emotions cause errors and when the stakes were this high, he knew Shepard wouldn't leave any room for those. Especially if those errors happened to come from her.

Thankfully, Shepard finally clenched her jaw and nodded briskly. "All right. You can come with me. You'll need to bring your own rations, though. I doubt there will be anything dextro outside of the city."

Garrus frowned as Shepard stepped away from him and grabbed her duffel off the floor. As she started stuffing the pieces of her hardsuit into the bag, Garrus repeated, "Where exactly are we going?"

"We'll be making a stop out in the country to get some information on Nate's whereabouts, then we'll head to the city. Nate's being held in a city called Chicago; it makes Omega look like a damned botanical garden. You'll love it."

"You always bring me to the nicest places," he mused. "What kind of information are we going to get outside of the city, though? Seems like a waste of time."

"I have a contact on Earth," she explained briskly, crouching down and reaching underneath her bed to withdraw the pistol Garrus had kicked away during their scuffle. She threw it in her bag. "He'll know where Nate went and why. It's our best lead on him."

"You can't send this guy a message and save time?"

Shepard blinked. "He's not linked to the extranet. He's an old friend, though, so if he sees that it's me, he'll talk."

"If you say so. Are we briefing everyone else?"

Shepard nodded, although she didn't look pleased. "I don't want to, but I think you're right. They should at least know some of the general details. Just in case we're gone for longer than expected."

"They could help, you know."

Shepard took her boots off and started to unzip her bodysuit—Garrus wasn't sure how her soft feet weren't being sliced to ribbons by the glass she was standing on, but it probably had to do with her heavy skin weave, courtesy of Cerberus. Shepard shrugged and replied, "It shouldn't be that difficult, once we figure out where they're keeping Nate. I used to know the city like the back of my—hey, can you unzip this for me?"

He froze. She was gesturing toward the zipper that ran down the length of her back and she turned, showing him that is was stuck right in between her shoulder blades. "Uh, yeah. Sure."

"Sorry," she apologized, glancing back at him over her shoulder. "I'd normally be able to reach it, but my shoulders are still a little stiff from last week."

Garrus remembered "last week." Seeing Shepard vault the space between the collector base and the _Normandy_ had nearly given him a heart attack. She was lucky that both he and Joker had been there to pull her up the rest of the way into the open airlock. The strained shoulder ligament she'd received as a result had been the least of her worries.

Muttering his assent, Garrus took a few steps over and unzipped the back of her sturdy mesh undersuit. He had to make a conscious effort to not let his talons trace the pale, smooth column of her spine and instead take a step back. _Dammit, Shepard._ Dangerous flashbacks of _that night_ swirled through his mind. Miraculously, he managed to turn around so she could have some privacy as she changed.

"Anyway," she said, completely unaware of the torture she was putting him through. (Or maybe she was entirely aware of it and enjoying it too much. He had no idea.) "I know the city. I know where the Reds used to operate. With luck, this should only take a couple of days."

Garrus tried to ignore the sound of fabric sliding over her skin as she got dressed. He ground out, "Nothing ever goes according to plan, Shepard. Not for us."

"I know. In which case, I have a backup plan."

"Which is?"

"Need-to-know," she replied enigmatically.

"All right," Garrus agreed begrudgingly. Shepard kept her secrets, but relied on honesty when those secrets impacted the mission in some fashion. She'd tell him if it was really important.

"Go get packed," Shepard ordered, stepping into his peripherals. "And pack _lightly_."

He almost laughed—all turians packed lightly by human standards—but the sound died in his throat when he saw what Shepard was wearing. She'd traded her Cerberus-issue uniform for a simple white tee and dark trousers that looked like they hadn't been worn before. Her tags, which she never, _ever_ took off, were strangely absent from her neck. In fact, the only indication she was military at all was the straight line of her shoulders and the pistol she wore strapped to her left hip. She looked like every other human he'd ever passed on the Citadel during his C-Sec days; the predatory gleam in her eyes was the same as ever, though.

She almost looked like a normal person. _Almost_.

At his puzzled glace, she raised an eyebrow and clarified, "You're turian. You can get away with wearing armor all the time. My people won't look twice at you—hell, most humans can't even tell two turians apart from one another. But if I want to go planetside without being recognized, I have to try a little harder."

"And you can tell me apart from other turians?" he asked dryly.

"I like to think I can pick you out of a crowd."

"What if I took my visor off?"

"Oh, that'll be the day," Shepard scoffed. "I'm pretty sure that thing is surgically grafted to your face at this point. Now focus and move your ass, Vakarian. We're short on time," She gestured toward the door of her cabin dismissively. "Meet me in the conference room in ten minutes. I'll have EDI alert everyone."

"I'm going, I'm going," Garrus insisted, holding his hands up in mock surrender as he backed up toward the door. As he turned to leave, however, Shepard called out his name. He turned back to find her clutching the strap of her duffel bag with a white-knuckled grip. She was giving him a small smile.

"I, uh… thanks. For punching me, I mean."

Garrus knew everything she wasn't saying. He wished he could say it back, but now wasn't the time for that. They only had seven days—they would talk after all was said and done, he swore to himself.

"Any time, Commander."

* * *

 **I know it was short, but I had to split this into two chapters. otherwise you guys would've had to trudge through eight thousand words in one go. Please review!**


	5. Chapter 4

Garrus hated mission briefings in the conference room.

It wasn't because Shepard's meetings were boring. Quite the opposite, actually. The way Shepard spoke was positively hypnotizing: the carefully-measured inflections she favored when answering difficult questions; the way her hands moved when she was worked up about something, wildly slicing through the air to accentuate her arguments; the gentle lilt in her voice that emerged whenever she conferred with Garrus off to the side—the voice she reserved only for him. Shepard was an expert at saying everything and nothing at the same time. She could convey hurt through a joke about the Reapers, or discontent by means of a soft hum under her breath. She never spoke solely to hear her own voice, which only made you want to listen more closely; every single word she uttered had an explicit purpose.

Hell, Shepard could probably make C-Sec's civilian directory sound downright inspirational.

Still, her siren-esque discourses didn't change the fact that the briefing room was so excruciatingly _small_. It was a damned shoebox; it could hardly fit ten humans shoulder to shoulder, much less six humans, a quarian, a geth unit, a krogan, and a full-grown turian in heavy armor. Whenever Shepard called a meeting, it was a mad dash to see who could get a spot at the table first; jarred elbows and copious amounts of cursing were a staple. But now that Mordin, Samara, and Thane were gone, it wasn't as much of an issue.

The conference room was almost comfortable to stand in, Garrus mused as he stowed his bag in the corner next to Shepard's. The space was still tight, though. Not stifling and cramped like usual—he had room to move around a few inches without bumping into something or some _one_ —but it wasn't spacious by any means. Miranda and Jacob were standing directly across the table from him and off to Shepard's right, trading confused whispers that his translator couldn't pick up. Zaeed was leaned against one wall with a pissed-off expression, probably due to the fact that Shepard had extinguished his cigar with a flick of her hand as soon as he entered the room with it. ("That was a bloody Cuban, you know," he'd grumbled at her. Shepard had elected to ignore him.) Grunt, on the other hand, was in the back corner of the room, practically bouncing on his toes in excitement at the possibility of a new mission. Jack was slouched against the wall next to him, trying to look as bored as possible, but Garrus knew better than that; Jack was just as restless as Grunt, if not more. She was just better at hiding it.

Tali and Legion were standing next to Garrus near the head of the table; the two had been practically inseparable since coming back through the Omega-4 relay, but it wasn't all sunshine and roses (Garrus still didn't know what a rose was, but Shepard said they were nice. He'd have to look it up later). They still didn't trust each other—Garrus didn't think Tali had put her shotgun back in the armory since Legion came aboard—but they were both rational enough to recognize the wealth of information to which they now had access, and they didn't plan on taking that information for granted anytime soon. Tali was on her omnitool, muttering quietly to Legion about self-replicating software algorithms, but it did not answer any of her numerous queries. Instead, it stood unnaturally still and tilted its head every once in a while as it soundlessly relayed more information to her omnitool in a never-ending stream of data. ("If you send me one more zettabyte of soil samples, I'm going to rip those tubes out of your head.")

Even Joker had deigned to join them, descending from his usual spot in the cockpit, despite his complaints of _I was in the middle of dinner_ and _I met this sexy asari at Flux but didn't have time to ask for her number._ Shepard had rolled her eyes and said, "If you ever come back to the shipwith a broken pelvis, expect no sympathy from me. _Ever_."

Despite the jokes and sarcastic quips that flew between the team, the tension in the room was palpable. Garrus didn't like it. It made his plates itch. The more he glanced at Shepard, the more apprehensive he became. As usual, Shepard's face betrayed nothing—she was always careful to keep her emotions in check in front of the crew. By all accounts, she looked like the calm, calculating Commander Shepard that they all had diligently served for the past several months. But Garrus could see through the microscopic cracks in her façade. The twitch in her jaw muscle confirmed his suspicions—she had no idea how to inform the crew without revealing her brother's existence.

"Are we going to get this show on the road or what?" Jack sneered suddenly, breaking the uneasy quiet of the room. She started picking at her ragged nails. "I've got better places to be."

"I second that," Zaeed grumbled.

Garrus glanced sidelong at Shepard. She was staring at the QEC terminal, unblinking, as if she hadn't heard them at all. Still thinking.

"Commander," Miranda prompted flatly, tilting her head.

Shepard's eyes snapped upwards, suddenly alert, and she looked at each of the crew members in turn. Her face sharpened into a carefully-constructed mask and her eyes grew cold and sanguine, a look they all knew like the backs of their hands. But Garrus was the only one who noticed that she was digging her nails into the palms of her hands, leaving crescent-shaped indentations behind.

Shepard cleared her throat and took a deep breath. "Before we start, I want to thank you all for coming on such short notice. I know most of you were out celebrating on the Citadel. _Legally_ , I hope."

Grunt chuckled, low and deliberate. "Nothing legal is ever fun."

"If I get another bill from C-Sec for damages to the Presidium, you'll answer to me. And I will not be happy, Grunt."

"They won't know it was me," he rumbled, a sour expression on his face. "Almost takes the fun out of it."

"Commander, you could've joined us at Flux," Joker suggested, leaning in. "And I know this great sushi place out near the Silversun Strip—"

Tali gasped, her eyes going wide behind her faceplate. "Is that the one with the aquarium in the floor?"

"The aquarium _is_ the floor."

"That place is amazing," she sighed. "A little unstable, maybe, but still amazing. I've always wanted to go there."

"So, Shepard," Joker said cheekily. "What do you say? Dinner tomorrow before we leave?"

Shepard smiled tightly and raised a hand, stopping them both. "Maybe next time, Joker. Remind me."

"Thank God, because you're the only one who can get me in there," Joker admitted begrudgingly. He crossed his arms and scowled down at his feet. "Apparently I'm not worthy of the damned VIP treatment, even though I'm the one who always saves your asses at the end of every near-death experience."

Shepard exhaled deeply, her expression grim. "Speaking of near-death experiences, something else has come up. It's high-priority and time-sensitive."

"An assignment?" Miranda asked, puzzled. "I didn't get any messages while I was out."

Jacob leaned a hip against the edge of the table. "What's the job, Shepard?"

"It's classified," she stated flatly. "Spectre business. None of you will be accompanying me on this particular job." Jacob looked disappointed, but wisely didn't say anything. Shepard began to pace slowly, hands braced behind her back. "Now, I realize that many of you were anticipating returning to your home planets and stations tomorrow." All eyes focused on her and she paused, unsure how to break the news to them. Blunt force, as usual, was her weapon of choice. "As much as I hate it, I'm going to have to delay you all for a day or two. I'm sorry. This mission comes first."

The whole room seemed to shift. Gone was the air of lighthearted uncertainty that had floated between the crew. Shoulders tensed. Brows furrowed in confusion. Heads tilted. _Why?_ Nobody spoke their questions aloud. They didn't have to.

Shepard sensed this. "Joker, you'll need to swing us around and let me off at the Sol System first. I'll be using the shuttle. Take everyone home after that, then report back to Earth. I'll give you my coordinates when it's closer to time."

Joker uncrossed his arms and gave her a puzzled look. "Uh… all right. It's not the weirdest thing you've ever asked me to do, I guess."

"Why the hell are you going to Earth without us?" Jack asked, narrowing her eyes at Shepard.

"It's Spectre business."

She scoffed, her voice rough and jagged around the edges. "Like that's ever stopped you from telling us anything before. You're stonewalling us, Shepard. It's pretty fucking obvious."

"I agree," Miranda added, though she looked appalled at the fact that she was agreeing with Jack, of all people.

Shepard lifted her chin. "It's a highly-classified op. I can't say more than what I've already told you."

"You haven't told us _anything_ ," Zaeed scoffed.

Out of the corner of her eye, Shepard glanced at Garrus. She looked worried—or, as worried as Shepard was capable of looking. It was closer to mild discomfort than anything else. Still, seeing her look so uncomfortable was… weird. Unsettling. His talons twitched at his side as he held her gaze. He raised a browplate in human fashion, a move he'd picked up from her over the years. _It's your call, Shepard. Either tell them or don't._

Tali looked from Garrus to the commander, clearly sensing that something wasn't being said. "Shepard, does this have anything to do with why you disappeared earlier?"

 _Tell them._

Shepard hesitated, her eyes roaming over the front of Garrus' armor as she weighed her options. He could practically see her cycle through various outcomes of the answer to that question, setting certain possibilities off to the side for _maybe_ and shunting others into the _hell no_ category. A crease puckered the smooth skin between her eyebrows. "I… well, yes," she admitted, stuffing her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. She rocked back and forth on her heels and grimaced. "I wasn't exactly stealthy about it. I planned on being gone by the time you all got back for the night, but circumstances have… changed. Sorry. I didn't mean to freak you out."

"Wait, you were trying to leave by yourself? For a mission?" Tali asked, sounding horrified.

"Shepard-Commander, our records indicate that without additional teammates, there is a high statistical probability of severe injury or even death. We must advise you to reconsider."

"I appreciate your concern," Shepard said, inclining her head, "but I'm not going alone. Not anymore, at least. Garrus will be accompanying me." She gave him a sidelong glance, her mouth turning down at the corners. "Which I'm still not thrilled about, by the way."

All eyes turned to Garrus, skepticism written across most of their expressions. He flared his mandibles indignantly. "Comments or concerns, anyone?"

"I think you should have another person with you," Tali muttered sourly, breaking the silence. "You _always_ take two people with you. What if something happens?"

"Something always happens," Zaeed rumbled. "You're a goddamn magnet for trouble."

"Shepard," Miranda said, crossing her arms. "I don't like this."

"Noted," said Shepard, her voice clipped.

"Now that we've broken from Cerberus, it would be foolish to assume that the Illusive Man isn't looking for you. You need more backup. At least one more person," Miranda reasoned. Her eyes were darting between Garrus and the commander, silently urging him to help her see reason.

Shepard sighed heavily. "This isn't negotiable, Lawson."

Garrus snorted softly, crossing his arms. "Yeah, don't push your luck. It was hard enough to convince her to let me tag along."

Shepard gave him an annoyed look before turning back to the rest of the crew. She spread her hands out in front of her. "Look, it's a delicate operation. I have a personal stake in the matter, so I'm keeping my team small for privacy reasons. I'm pulling rank on this one."

With a snarl, Jack elbowed her way past Grunt and jabbed a finger in Shepard's direction, glaring. "You sound fuckin' robotic, Shepard. No offense to the actual robot in the room—"

"This unit is not capable of taking personal offense," Legion interrupted.

"—but it's pretty obvious that something else is going on. Something _big_. Fess up."

The room murmured in agreement. Garrus looked at Shepard out of the corner of his eye; her face was frighteningly void of emotion, but he saw the muscle in her jaw flex as she clenched her teeth. Cautiously, Garrus shifted a few inches, just close enough to catch her eye. She glanced at him with an expression that screamed _what the hell do I tell them?_

"Tell them the truth, Shepard," Garrus murmured, pitching his subvocals lower. He felt Shepard stiffen next to him.

"Tell us what?" Tali asked, coming up behind them both. Her eyes behind her violet faceplate were narrowed as she looked between the two of them expectantly. Shepard waved her off. Her eyes were wide as she agonized over the decision.

Miranda crossed her arms and cocked out one of her voluptuous hips in defiance. "Commander, with all due respect, I don't appreciate being kept in the dark."

"I haven't had anything to shoot in days," Zaeed complained gruffly. "I could go for another mission right about now. Tell us about the goddamn op and be done with it."

"It's…classified," Shepard maintained, clearly not budging. "I'm sorry, but—"

"Spirits, just tell them already," Garrus burst out, exasperated.

That was _much_ louder than he'd anticipated.

The room stilled. Out of the corner of his eye, Garrus saw Tali step back, pulling Legion with her. Joker paled. Jack looked thrilled, sensing the sudden anger that rolled off of Shepard in waves, threatening to drown Garrus where he stood.

Garrus wasn't sure where the outburst came from. Maybe he was too comfortable with Shepard now that they'd slept together. More daring. Willing to question her decisions instead of accepting them as the law of the _Normandy_. He was no stranger to questioning Shepard's decisions—he made a habit out of it because she wanted him to be her voice of reason in unreasonable times. Her devil's advocate (whatever that meant). When she wasn't sure about something, she asked him.

But he never gave his opinion unless she asked for it, and he never told her she was wrong in front of the crew.

 _Ever_.

Shepard slowly turned to face him. Even though she was tall for a human, she still had to look up at him—not that her height made her any less terrifying. The temperature of the room seemed to drop ten degrees as her eyes froze over with cold, devastating fury. "Garrus," she warned lowly.

 _Please don't turn me inside out with your mind._ He coughed awkwardly, trying to explain himself. "Commander, I think you should tell them. They obviously want to help." Garrus gestured at the group around them. He turned and met her gaze head-on, daring her to argue. He was in too deep to back down now.

And she _was_ being really unreasonable.

Shepard argued, "It's classified—".

"—because you _want_ it to be classified—"

"It's none of their business!"

"It's their business because it's _you_ , Shepard."

"Vakarian, I'm ordering you—"

"Hear me out, all right?" he said, cutting her off. Her eyes widened in barely-suppressed rage, but before she could argue any further, he continued, "We'll cover more ground this way. The more people we bring, the faster we can find him."

"' _Him?'_ " Miranda asked, eyebrows lifting in uncharacteristic surprise. Her eyes were darting between the two of them, demanding answers. "Will someone please tell me what the hell is going—"

"Lawson, shut up," Joker hissed from across the table. He briefly cast a nervous look at the commander—Joker had witnessed some of Shepard and Garrus' arguments on the SR-1 and knew how nasty they could get—and made a sharp hand gesture across his throat. "Let mommy and daddy fight."

Shepard didn't pay any attention to them, focusing purely on Garrus. She wasn't glowing yet, which was a good sign. "This isn't the Collector base," she snapped at him. "A large team will jeopardize the mission."

"Split them up. They can take different public transports from the Citadel. EDI can work up some aliases for them."

Shepard shook her head. "It's too risky."

"Our mission are always too risky. It's our specialty."

"I'm not about to let—"

"Dammit, quit being a hero for one second and _let us help you_ ," Garrus said exasperatedly. Before he could talk himself out of it, he reached forward and slipped his talons around one of her elbows, gripping tightly. Shepard hesitated at his emboldened touch and a flash of uncertainty thawed her icy gaze as they looked at each other. "This kind of stuff is what we do best. Let us do our jobs. Please, Shepard."

By that point, everyone else in the room was confused. Grunt had long since ceased bouncing on his feet in anticipation and was now glaring at Garrus vehemently—probably for laying a hand on his beloved battlemaster. (That kid had attachment issues like no other.) Zaeed was listening raptly to their exchange and even Legion looked fascinated, its face-light brightening the scene before it.

Tali merely stood back and fidgeted nervously, having seen this kind of fight a time or two before. It didn't make it any easier to watch. "Shepard," Tali said warily. "Tell us what's wrong."

"Yeah," Jack seconded. "Are you in trouble or somethin'?"

Grunt snorted. "My battlemaster is strong. Whatever is going on, she and I can handle it with our fists."

Garrus maintained eye contact with Shepard as they silently argued about it, ignoring the cacophony around them.

 _You insubordinate ass. I should throw you off my ship for a stunt like that._

 _Save it for after we rescue your brother. Trust us, Shepard. Let us help you._

Luckily, Shepard didn't seem to have much fight left in her since their encounter upstairs. And there was the time limit to consider, which weighed heavily on both of them. With each passing second, their chances of saving Nate grew smaller and smaller, and no one was more aware of that than Shepard. Garrus tried not to sag with relief as her brows furrowed and she bit the inside of her cheek, averting her eyes in silent acquiesce. She gave him a tight nod and turned back to the group.

"Christ," she muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I'll deal with your ignorance of the chain of command later. We don't have time for this." Shepard frowned and wrung her hands nervously. "This… is not going to be easy."

Miranda braced her hands against the tabletop and leaned in hungrily. " _What_ isn't?"

Shepard took a deep breath, steeling herself. "I received an encrypted transmission from some old friends of mine about two hours ago." She paused, her expression darkening. "Well, they're not really friends. Not anymore."

"Oh, _shit_ ," Joker breathed. He took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair—something Garrus had never seen him do before. Joker's eyes were as wide as saucers. "The Reds?"

Tali glanced at Garrus, tilting her head in silent question. He knew she was wondering if this was in any way related to the incident with the human they'd run into at Chora's Den all those years ago.

 _My past is a matter of public record. I have nothing to hide._

Remembering that day, Garrus almost laughed. That guy—Finch—must have known who her brother was. No wonder Shepard had looked so shaken after the encounter. Garrus almost wished he could go back and shoot the guy himself for threatening her like that. At Tali's puzzled face, Garrus gave a near-imperceptible nod in her direction that he hoped no one else noticed; a nod that said _this is exactly what you think it is._

Tali's glowing eyes widened and she put a hand up to cover her vocal modulator in shock. " _Keelah_ , Shepard."

Miranda, on the other hand, looked dispassionate. "I remember reading about your, ah… associates during the Lazarus Project. They're small-time. Inconsequential. They hardly deserve our attention."

Shepard hesitated. Pain flitted across her face, so briefly Garrus almost missed it. "They have something that belongs to me. Something important. I need to get it back."

"What the hell is it?" Jack demanded. For once, she didn't seem angry or bored—she was actually concerned. Interested, even.

For several seconds, Shepard said absolutely nothing. She simply stared down at the surface of the table and wrung her hands so tightly her knuckles blanched white. Surreptitiously, Garrus took a step toward Shepard and nudged her with his elbow encouragingly. _Come on. If you can defeat Reapers in your spare time, you can tell them about this._

Shepard exhaled. She pulled up her omnitool and typed a few commands into the glowing orange interface, which cast deep shadows across her sharp cheekbones. "EDI, cut the feeds to this room and lock the door. I don't want anyone eavesdropping."

"Of course, Shepard," the AI intoned. The door to the briefing room chimed and slid shut behind Grunt—the room suddenly seemed much smaller. When the door panel turned red, Shepard typed a few more commands and mirrored her omnitool's display with the QEC hologram projector in the middle of the briefing table.

A grainy, dark image materialized in front of them. It took a few seconds before Garrus realized the image was moving—it was a video, and a poorly-rendered one at that. Shepard stood silently off to one side with her eyes trained on the floor at her feet, refusing to watch.

"The _great_ Commander Shepard," an unfamiliar voice drawled mockingly, sounding tinny and half-garbled. Everyone in the conference room recoiled at the grating tone of his voice—probably human, by the sound of it. Garrus watched as the person holding the camera walked down a dark hallway that looked pretty run down, but the image quality was too poor to make out anything that would help identify the location. A hotel, maybe? Garrus wasn't sure. The voice continued, sounding like broken glass. "Back from the fucking dead, I hear. If only we were all so lucky."

"Commander," Miranda whispered, not taking her eyes off the shaky footage. "What's—"

"I'll explain in a minute," she murmured. "Just watch."

The crew remained eerily silent as the unidentified man in the video walked further down the hallway. A hand reached out— _definitely_ human—to push open a side door into a room that was slightly brighter than the hallway. Not that there was much to see, Garrus discovered. The room itself was practically in ruins. Windows were broken and half-boarded up, the tile that had once adorned the floor was covered with dirt and cracked in thousands of places, and there wasn't a single piece of furniture aside from a chair in the center of the room.

And in the chair was a man.

"Who is that?" Tali asked, leaning her hands against the conference table to get a closer look. Her eyes were narrowed behind her faceplate.

When Shepard didn't answer the question, Garrus turned to check on her. Her shoulders were stiff and her hands were clasped behind her back in an attempt to look as calm and collected as possible, but her face was drawn and ashen. She looked like she was about to be sick.

The person holding the camera stepped closer to the man sitting in the middle of the room—Garrus assumed it was Nathan. His hands were bound tightly to the arms of the chair and his feet were shackled to the floor with standard-issue mag-cuffs. The skin around the shackles was raw and caked with dried blood the color of rust, as if he'd struggled against his confines for a long time before giving up. Garrus noticed that Nate's left ankle was swollen to twice its size. He grimaced. The bruised, purple flesh pressed dangerously against the mag-cuff and his foot was turned at an unnatural angle away from his body—broken and definitely not set properly. It must have been excruciatingly painful.

Nate's chin was resting against his chest, so Garrus couldn't make out his face in the dim lighting. He couldn't see much of a resemblance to Shepard, but their hair was roughly the same dark color. With the lack of direct light, however, it was impossible to tell.

The man approached Nate slowly and circled him. Nate didn't move a muscle. He was probably either asleep or passed out—not dead, though. If the Reds wanted Shepard, Nate was their only leverage.

"I'm afraid he isn't enjoying our hospitality very much," the man said lightly. He continued to circle around Nate's chair until he came to a stop in front of him and crouched down. Impatient with the lack of response, the man slapped Nate's shadowed face sharply. Half the room flinched at the sudden noise. "Rise and shine, Nathan."

Nate groaned and his eyes slowly fluttered open—or, one of them did. The other was swollen shut with dark blue and purple bruising. He lifted his head wearily, squinting into the camera as his eyes adjusted to the sudden onslaught of dim light.

"Say hi to Janie, Nate. Tell her how you're feelin'."

If Garrus had any doubt about Shepard's relation to the man in the chair, they were quashed the second Nate looked into the camera. They had the same razor-sharp grey eyes that always seemed to cut straight through a person, the same angular cheekbones, the distinctive jawline—Shepard's was softer than Nate's, more feminine and graceful, but Garrus had learned long ago not to be fooled by her deceptively elegant features. With Nate, Garrus already knew what to expect—he was just as fiery and unpredictable as his sister.

"Fuck," Jack breathed, glancing between Shepard and Nathan. " _Fuck_."

Garrus felt a sudden warmth on his right. His mandibles flared in surprise when he found Shepard standing next to him, so close that her fingers were brushing his beneath the edge of the table. He felt one of her strange, dexterous fingers curl around one of his talons and tighten, as if he were the only thing keeping her from drifting away in the storm that raged before them both.

"Come on, Nate." The jagged, mocking voice of the man in the video interrupted Garrus' thoughts. "Don't you have _anything_ you want to say to her? It's been, what, at least ten or eleven years?"

"Fuck off, Beckett," Nate sneered.

"You've got a mouth like she did. Luckily, your temper isn't nearly as, ah… _volatile_." The man—Beckett?—stood up from his crouch and looked down at Nate. "Now, say hi to Janie and tell her how nice your stay's been so far. Go on, then."

"We've been over this a million times," he groaned, tipping his head back in exasperation.

"Just do it."

"Or what?" Nate shot back, choking out a laugh. "You'll kill me? If you do that, I'll be sure to give your regards to my sister; it'll be nice to have the family all back together for once. You'd be doing me a goddamn favor."

Beckett sighed dramatically. "You're making this more difficult than it needs to be, Nathan."

Nate spat at Beckett's feet and glared, which reminded Garrus so much of Shepard that he almost looked over at her for comparison. He'd seen her do the exact same thing on Horizon when they first heard Harbinger's voice resonate through their heads.

"Listen, asshole," Nate started, straining his feet against his shackles as he stiffened with rage. "I don't know how many times I have to tell you that before it gets through your thick skull, but I'll say it once more because I know how goddamn stupid you are: Janie's _dead_. She isn't coming back for me or anybody else."

Beckett chuckled and the camera trembled slightly, sending it out of focus for a moment. "The poor kid has no faith in you, Shepard."

"You're delusional," Nate muttered.

"How's about we play a game, huh? Let's pretend that Janie's actually alive," Beckett suggested, leaning forward. Abruptly, his hand shot out and gripped Nate's chin painfully tight, dragging his face closer to the camera as Nate struggled to free himself. Garrus felt Shepard's forefinger tighten painfully around his talon as Beckett's dug his fingers into the pliable skin of Nathan's face, pressing deliberately against the bruises that were already there. "What would you say to her? If she could hear you, I mean. Just imagine it."

Nate bared his teeth in rage. "I was never good at make-believe. You know that."

"Try."

"You're f—"

"Do it!" Beckett roared, jerking Nate's chin sharply upward. Garrus winced—partly out of sympathy, but mostly because Shepard accidentally sent a jolt of biotic energy through his hand, sending pins and needles up into his shoulder.

"Sorry," she murmured, quiet enough so only he could hear her. He stretched out the rest of his talons and wrapped them around her hand, squeezing gently in response. She squeezed back and held on with crushing force.

Several beats of silence passed them by as they watched Nate's struggling, distorted face in the video. Even through the pain, the kid was resilient—knowing Shepard, though, it wasn't surprising. After a few more seconds of struggling, however, Nate's gaze centered on the camera and his face hardened, his eyes going cold.

"You want to know what I'd say to her? Fine. You win, asshole." He bared his teeth in a sneer. "I'd tell her she should've stayed dead and gone straight to hell."

"That's more like it!" Beckett crowed, promptly releasing Nate's face from his vice-like grip. "Love between siblings is such a beautiful thing."

"Just let me go, man," Nate ground out, slumping back in his seat.

"Oh, I'll let you go," Beckett promised. "In a week, maybe. I'm not sure how much of you will be left by then, but that all depends on your lovely sister." Beckett turned the camera around suddenly, so the screen was filled with nothing else but his glisteningly wet teeth, which were bared in some kind of sick smile. "You have seven days to come home and atone for your sins, Commander Shepard. And if I find out that you've brought your circus of freaks along, I'll personally see to it that your little brother's death is as slow as possible."

He paused and added, almost as an afterthought. "You know, I think I'll start with his fingernails, just the way we used to do it back in the day. I'm sure you remember—you're the one who practically trademarked it, after all." He chuckled, low and deliberate. "See you soon, Janie."

The video ended on a pixelated image of Beckett's mouth, frozen in the shape of a wicked grin.

The lights in the conference room gradually lifted. No one breathed. No one moved. Even Grunt, who usually wasn't fazed by much of anything, looked confused at the sudden turn of events. The only person who moved was Shepard, who discreetly released Garrus' hand, closed the mirrored display of her omnitool, and exhaled deeply, letting it all sink in for a few moments.

Now Garrus understood why Shepard had blown out her model display case—hell, her whole _room_ —with her temperamental biotics. Had it been Solana chained to that chair...

He didn't want to think about it.

Shepard broke the silence. "His name is Nathan Alexander Shepard." She took a breath that wavered imperceptibly, holding her hands tightly behind her back. "And he's the only family I have left in this damned galaxy."

Legion tilted his head, peering down at her. "Shepard-Commander, our records indicate that you have no surviving family members. How is this possible?"

"I did what I had to do to keep Nate safe."

"How can you have a bloody _brother_?" Miranda asked, looking rattled for once. She began wringing her hands together. "We checked for family ties when we built you. There's no way—"

"Miranda, it wasn't like you missed that particular detail by accident. You didn't find Nate because I didn't _want_ anyone to find him."

Jacob frowned, crossing his arms. "What do you—"

"That's not important right now," Tali barked, cutting off whatever Jacob had been about to say. "If Shepard kept this from us, she probably has a good reason. It's not our place to pry."

Shepard shot Tali a grateful look before turning back to the crew. She ran a nervous hand through her wild locks of hair. "Tali is right. You all probably know by now that I don't like to talk about my life before the Alliance, and I have good reasons for that. I'd do anything to avoid going back to Earth— _anything_ —but Nate's in trouble. I can't ignore this situation. His safety is the only thing that matters to me right now because he's— well, he's all I've got."

Tali looked at Garrus helplessly and elbowed him sharply. He held up his hands in mock surrender, shaking his head. "Don't look at me. I only found out about this about twenty minutes ago."

"The only reason Garrus knows," Shepard defended, "is because he caught me on my way out and persuaded me to tell him."

"'Persuaded?'" Zaeed raised his eyebrows.

Shepard gave him a flat look. "The son of a bitch punched me in the face. Made me realize I wasn't thinking clearly." She gestured to the split skin on her cheekbone, which was already half-healed. Jack's eyebrows shot up, clearly impressed.

Garrus shrugged. "I made her see reason."

"It won't happen again. As much as I hate it," Shepard glanced at him sidelong, "Garrus is right about me going alone. I'm too emotionally invested in this operation, which is why he'll be coming with me down to Earth. I can't risk Nate's safety by bringing anyone el—"

"Shepard-Commander," Legion called out suddenly, stepping forward. "We would like to assist with the task set before you. Will you allow us?"

"Me too," Zaeed grunted, pushing off the wall. He crossed his arms over his chest.

Shepard frowned at him and said warily, "I won't be paying you, if that's what you're after."

The mercenary waved her off. "If the twerp's really related to you, he's got a pair of balls worth saving. Consider it a favor."

"I'm touched," Shepard said drily.

"I want in, too," Jack demanded suddenly.

"And me," Jacob seconded.

"And me!" Joker put his hat back on, looking determined. "Somebody's got to drive the getaway vehicle for you criminals."

Grunt raised a fist in the air. "I will help you save your clan!"

Tali raised a hand in the air, cocking her head to the side as she added, "And I'll tell the Flotilla that I'll be arriving a few days later than expected. I can't believe you didn't ask us for help in the first place."

Shepard shook her head at all of them, planting her hands on the tabletop. "I can't ask you to—"

"Fuckin' hell, Shepard." Jack rolled her eyes. "We'll find your brother. Just accept the help already."

Shepard looked at each of them in turn with an unreadable expression on her face, landing finally on Miranda, who was the only one who looked hesitant about the idea. After a few moments of deliberation, however, the ex-Cerberus agent gave Shepard a soft smile and said, "Of course I'll help you, Shepard. I'm just having a little trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that you're not an only child. We spent _weeks_ trying to replicate DNA strands that he could have given us in five minutes. I have a thousand questions about all this."

"I'll answer all of your questions once Nate's safe," Shepard assured her. "I promise. And that goes for the rest of you guys, all right? I'm not exactly the most open person in the world—"

"Understatement," Zaeed scoffed.

"—and I get that. But until then, let's focus on finding my brother. We only have seven days."

"How many hours are in an Earth day?" Grunt asked.

"Twenty-four, which isn't a lot by most of your standards. Time is shorter than we realize."

"Let's get to work, then," Miranda agreed.

Tali nodded, and opened up her omnitool. Fingers flying across the keys, she said, "We've got about 168 hours, give or take a few, but it should be enough time to find him if we spread out. Do you have any more details you can tell us, Shepard? Anything to help narrow down the search?"

Shepard rested her hands against the edge of the table and nodded, furrowing her brow. "There's not a lot to go on. The video quality is garbage and EDI can't trace where the message came from past Earth's comm buoy. I did a little bit of digging on my own, though. EDI, can you pull up a map of Chicago? Highlight the districts in different colors."

"Of course, Shepard."

A glowing topographical map of the city filled center of the conference table in a flash. Tiny skyscrapers sprouted around tightly gridded streets and alleyways. Garrus noticed a particularly large lake or ocean next to one side of the city—Chicago, he reminded himself. Shepard's _home_. Even those words sounded strange in his head. Garrus had always considered Shepard's home to be the _Normandy,_ and the crew her family _._ Picturing Shepard living anywhere else didn't feel right.

Joker let out a low whistle, craning his neck so he could see past Grunt's shoulder. "The Windy City. I haven't been there since I was a kid. You _lived_ there, Shepard?"

"For a while, until I was sixteen."

Even Zaeed had the audacity to look vaguely impressed. "No wonder you're so fucking crazy."

"She mentioned it might not be such a nice place to vacation," Garrus remarked.

"Some parts of the city are nice," Shepard argued lamely. "But yeah, anything between Burbank and Lake Michigan is pretty rough."

"How rough are we talkin'?" Jack asked. There was an eager gleam in her eyes.

Zaeed answered with a sharp, gravelly laugh. "Rougher than you've ever seen it, sweetheart. Three bullets in the back of the skull is just another goddamn Tuesday down there. I once saw a seven year-old girl near Cicero stab a man twenty times in the stomach over a shitty breakfast sandwich."

Garrus spared a sidelong glance at Shepard, who'd managed to keep her gaze trained on the map. The shadows beneath her eyes had deepened and her expression was weary as her eyes slid over the map in front of her. He silently wondered what horrors Shepard had experienced while she lived there. Maybe he didn't want to know.

 _I did what I had to do to keep Nate safe._

Garrus shuddered. He _definitely_ didn't want to know.

Shepard pointed to a southern part of the city, interrupting any other comments from the rest of the crew. "Nate was picked up somewhere around here, near West Englewood. Hardly any security footage and no police reports. I checked."

Garrus frowned. "That's unusual."

"It's not, actually," said Shepard, shaking her head. "Chicago's security on the southwest side is spotty at best. That's why we chose Tenth Street in the first place."

"You think that's where they've got your brother?" asked Jacob.

"I'd put money on it. Beckett wouldn't risk going too far north or east because of the other gangs in the area. It would start a war, which he probably doesn't want right now. Or ever."

Miranda nodded, surveying the indicated terrain with narrowed eyes. "All right, then. What's the plan?"

Garrus cringed as Shepard popped the knuckle of her forefinger—she was constructing a plan in her head. Gone was the manic, uncertain Shepard he'd stumbled across upstairs, which had been replaced with _Commander Shepard_ , their fearless leader and expert tactician. She rubbed her jaw (which was probably still sore from when Garrus punched her) and looked over at Jacob and Miranda. "I want you two to start in Burbank and work your way east, toward Chicago Harbor. Check abandoned buildings, homeless shelters, nightclubs—the usual places. See if anyone knows anything. Ditch the uniforms, though. If anyone catches wind that you're not regular civilians, they'll clam up." She paused, considering. "Or they'll drag you into an alleyway and tear you to pieces. Either way, be careful."

"Understood," they said simultaneously. (Though Jacob looked perturbed about the possibility of being torn to piecesin an alleyway.)

Shepard turned to Grunt. "Grunt, I want you in Englewood, right in the middle of everything. Chicago doesn't see many krogan, so none of the other gangs will give you any trouble. See if you can find out where the Reds are holed up and let me know when you find out." Grunts face lit up and he opened his mouth, but Shepard silenced him with a sharp gesture. "And no," she added sternly, "you may _not_ use your fists or your shotgun unless otherwise provoked. Understood?" He grumbled his assent and slumped back against the wall, clearly disappointed.

Shepard turned to Zaeed and Jack. "You two start in the upper south side in Bridgeport. Work your way down toward Englewood and rendezvous with Grunt." For once, Jack didn't make any snide comments about being stuck with the old man for an assignment. Garrus suspected they were beginning to like working with each other, though they'd never admit it.

Lastly, Shepard turned to Tali and Legion. "As much as I hate to say it, you two should stay on the ship. Be our eyes in the sky, so to speak. Keep us informed about any surprises headed our way."

"Shepard—"

"Legion can't come to Earth," Shepard insisted, cutting Tali off. "Ever since the whole Eden Prime debacle, humans aren't exactly fans of the geth. Besides, AI platforms are illegal. I don't want to risk it. You two can work with EDI while the _Normandy_ is in orbit and feed us any information you find."

"Shepard-Commander, we will remain on the ship as you require," Legion said, inclining its head. "However, Creator Tali'Zorah's presence on Earth would considerably increase the probability of finding your brother within the allotted time. We believe she should be allowed to accompany you."

"Legion's right," Garrus agreed. "Besides, I doubt Tali would sit up here quietly while we all spectacularly saved the day. You'd never hear the end of it, Shepard."

Shepard regarded Tali, frowning as she considered her other options. "You could go with Grunt, I suppose."

Tali recoiled, clearly offended. "And play _babysitter_? Forget it, Shepard."

"Well, I'm not sending you by yourself."

"I could go with you and Garrus."

Shepard's face hardened and she sliced a hand through the air. "Absolutely not. It's dangerous enough bringing one person, but two? He'll kill—"

"We won't let that happen," Miranda insisted, crossing her arms. "We'll find your brother before any harm comes to him."

"I will tear his captors apart," Grunt rumbled menacingly, pounding his fists together.

Garrus turned and looked down at Shepard, who looked more exhausted than he'd ever seen her before. She was leaning against the table like it was the only thing keeping her upright. Gently, Garrus tapped a talon on Shepard's shoulder and pointed at Tali, who had her arms crossed over her chest in defiance. "Not to sound selfish, but I would appreciate having another dextro along. Complaining about the ration bars by myself isn't exactly my idea of fun."

For a second, it looked like she was going to say no. Ultimately, though, Shepard rolled her eyes and rubbed a hand over her face, groaning. "Oh my God, _fine_. Tali can come with us. But that's it, all right? No one else."

Tali's eyes lit up. "Thank you, Shepard."

"Don't mention it."

"I—"

"No, really. Don't mention it. I might change my mind," Shepard grumbled, looking down at the map of Chicago in front of them. Shepard sounded irritated, but Garrus saw the glint in her eyes—she was relieved that Tali was coming. Ever since they picked Tali up on Haestrom, Shepard hadn't rotated her ground squad; Shepard always took point with her offensive biotics, Tali had the short-range firepower to cover her flank, and Garrus brought up the rear with his sniper rifle—the perfect balance for any ground mission.

 _Just like old times._

But it wasn't like old times. Not really. There were no Reapers to fight, no human colonies to save from imminent destruction, no rogue Spectres to hunt down. For once, millions of lives were not hanging in the balance. This time around, it was only one life that mattered: Nate's—which might have been the most important life of all.

Tali shot the commander a troubled glance, tilting her head to the side. "All right," Tali said. She squared her shoulders. "So, where are we going?"

"I have a friend in the countryside who might have a lead on Nate's location. Tali, Garrus, and I will take the Kodiak and head down there first. We'll stay there overnight and then head to the city first thing in the morning to rendezvous with Miranda and Jacob at the big cathedral on 21st Street in Englewood. If we still don't have any leads at that point, we'll go to plan B."

"Correct me if I'm wrong," said Joker, "but every time we've ever gone to 'plan B', I have to swoop in and save your asses while my ship gets shot halfway to hell. Forgive me if I'm not thrilled with the idea."

Shepard rolled her eyes and muttered something about _overdramatic pilots I swear to God_ before looking up to say, "Plan B stands for _bait_ , Joker. I'll draw them out, then you guys follow wherever they take me. We'll be in and out within a few hours. The ship will be fine."

Garrus stomach dropped. _Need-to-know_ she'd told him. No wonder she hadn't been keen on sharing her idea—it wasn't an idea as much as it was a death wish. He flared his mandibles irately. "The last time you were bait, you almost had your mind fried by a murderous asari."

"Keyword being _almost_. No asari will be involved this time," she replied cooly, waving him off. "I'm perfectly capable—"

"I'm inclined to agree with Officer Vakarian," said Miranda. "It's too dangerous."

Shepard pinched the bridge of her nose and allowed her eyelids to drift shut. "It's like the chain of command doesn't exist anymore." Her eyes snapped open and she met Miranda's unrelenting gaze with fervor. "All we can do is hope we don't have to resort to plan B. We can argue about the logistics later. We're wasting time. Every second we spend here arguing about this, the longer Nate stays strapped to that chair, and the closer he gets to being reunited with my parents. I am not about to let that happen, is that clear? We have to find Nate, get him out—I don't care if you have a blow up a damned city block to find him—and bring him back to the _Normandy_ so Chakwas can tend to his injuries. Understood?"

"Understood," they chorused.

"All right," Shepard breathed. "Those of you who are heading to Chicago, have EDI work up some aliases and hop on public transport from the Citadel. I don't want a paper trail that can prove you're working for me. As far as the Reds know, I'm coming alone, and that's how I want to keep it." She looked around the room, glancing at each of her crewmembers with a determined face. "Pack your bags and board a shuttle within the hour. Dismissed."

The crew began to slowly trickle out of the briefing room, speaking in hushed, urgent tones about the mission that lay before them. No easygoing jokes were tossed around—not this time. They all could sense how shaken the commander really was, what was really at stake. If they didn't save Nathan in time, they'd lose much more than Shepard's brother—they'd lose part of Shepard herself.

Joker and Tali looked over their shoulders on the way out, shooting concerned glances at Shepard and Garrus that spoke volumes; they said nothing, however, and left the room with everyone else, leaving them alone.

The second the door shut behind Tali, Shepard leaned her hands against the table and exhaled, her breathing ragged and weary. Garrus watched in fascination as her emotional armor dropped piece by piece, gradually revealing the worried, uncertain version of Shepard he'd seen upstairs; he was careful to stay silent. As tough as she was, she was fragile and ready to break at the slightest oscillation—Garrus didn't want to be responsible for shattering her.

Her head drooped and her shoulders sagged, her loose hair falling to cover her face like a lush, dark curtain. Her knuckles were white against the edge of the table. "I would rather relive the Skyllian Blitz a thousand times over than go back to Chicago. At least things made sense back then. See a batarian, shoot a batarian, rinse and repeat. It was easy. Earth… everything is more complicated down there."

Garrus pressed his mandibles close to his face as he steeled himself. "Is that why you left? Because things were complicated?"

Shepard turned her head, glancing up at him through her lashes. She bit her lip and lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. "More or less, yeah."

"More or less?"

"It's complicated."

"I'm going to start keeping a tally of how many times you say that," he remarked, subvocals thrumming with amusement. He wanted to reach out and rest a hand on her shoulder—comfort her, tell her they were going to save her brother and everything was going to be all right in the end—but he couldn't. Shepard never made promises she couldn't keep and expected her crew to do the same.

"I've gone back to Earth a few times since I enlisted, but I always made sure to steer clear of Chicago," she murmured. Her fingers curled underneath her palms to form fists against the surface of the table. "And now I'm breaking every rule I ever made to go back there and save a brother who hates me. The Collector base is starting to feel like a walk in the park."

"Somehow, I think the millions of humans colonists would think differently," he told her gently. "But I see your point even if I don't see all of it."

She shuddered faintly. "You don't _want_ to see all of it."

"What if I do?"

Shepard lifted her head and met his gaze. She looked so conflicted, so anguished. She was laid open like a wound that was desperately trying to heal, but no one would allow her the courtesy of convalescing. "Jesus, Garrus, ask me anything else. _Anything_. I keep my secrets for a reason. You know that."

"Everyone has secrets."

"Not like mine." A shadow flickered across her face. "You're going to have to trust me."

"Just because I trust you doesn't mean I'm not worried. I've never seen you like this, Shepard."

"The Reds bring out the worst in me. Let's leave it at that."

"Let's not," he argued gently. He knew he was pushing the boundaries of what she was comfortable with, but he had to try. "You've always been able to talk to me before, and suddenly you're locking me out like everyone else. Don't you think you'd feel better if you talked to someone about all of this?"

She turned to face him, her mouth twisted in a strained, wry smile. "I hate it when you're reasonable."

"And I hate it when you try to do everything on your own."

Her smile fell, turning into a grimace. Her eyes dropped to the front of his armor. "Well, you've got me there."

"Shepard," he coaxed, peering down into her face.

She sighed, slumping her shoulders. "Fine. I, uh… I promise I'll explain everything once we get to Earth—not here, all right? Too many eyes and ears on this ship. It was risky enough showing that video and telling the team about Nathan."

"I'll hold you to that." Tentatively, he set a hand on Shepard's shoulder; the corded muscle that ran beneath the thin fabric of her t-shirt jumped at his touch, but she didn't pull away. Her expression was unreadable—wariness mixed with… something.

Garrus' mandibles flared slightly as a thought occurred to him. "You know, I've never been to Earth before."

She recoiled. "Really?"

"Really."

The corners of her mouth quirked up. Her eyes glinted impishly—a look that usually indicated one of her insane, off-the-wall plans; Garrus had never liked that expression. Her shoulder shook slightly beneath his hand as she laughed quietly, shaking her head. "Oh, boy. You're going to absolutely _hate_ it."

* * *

 **Sorry for the wait, guys. This chapter was a bear to write. Every sentence fought me. Also, finals are coming up as well as my wedding, so updates might take a little longer than usual, but things will pick up during the summer again.**

 **Please review! I always make sure to respond to you guys. :)**


	6. Chapter 5

Shepard was good at many things.

Saving the galaxy from imminent destruction was near the top of that list, followed closely by smash-and-grab ground operations, telling politicians to get their shit together (politely), and pulling off risky plans that she came up with on the fly. But everyone falls short of perfection, and nobody knew that better than she did.

Shepard was awful at exactly two things: driving and talking about her past.

Her terrible driving went without saying. She was born and raised in the city; it didn't make sense for her to get her driver's license since public transportation was so readily available, even in the slums where she lived. However, as bad as she was at driving, Shepard was even worse at sharing secrets.

She was not an open book by any means—a stone tablet would probably be a more accurate descriptor. Shepard kept her secrets and she kept them well, not letting anyone close enough to see the inconsistencies and grey areas in her publically-accessible backstory. If someone started asking questions, she made sure to change the subject. It was a knee-jerk reaction. It was her prison, her castle, her vault.

Nobody got in.

It was easier that way, she always told herself. She could be Commander Shepard, hero of the Skyllian Blitz, savior of the Citadel—not street-rat Janie from the south side of Chicago. If no one knew the truth, they wouldn't judge her for what she did. What she _had_ to do.

 _The sickening squelch of spurting blood is all she hears, and the metallic scent of it pervades her senses, sharp against the dank air of the subway tunnel—even sharper than the dented, scratched blade she holds in her trembling hands. Gaping wounds and the sticky feeling in her shoes and the heat, the horrible, horrible waning warmth of extinguished life trickling down beneath the rusted rails. Everything is wrong. This wasn't supposed to happen oh God this wasn't supposed to happen not like this—_

"You still in there?"

Shepard's eyes snapped up to see Garrus giving her a sidelong glance from the pilot's seat of the shuttle—after some finagling aboard the _Normandy_ , he agreed that she could sit in the copilot's seat as long as she didn't touch anything. "Not after last time," he told her. Reluctantly, Shepard agreed to his terms (though "last time" her driving had worked, despite the damages to the skycar) and took on the role of navigator.

His blue eyes darted between Shepard and the controls in front of him, his mandibles pressed close to his face in concern. He'd been giving her that look a lot lately, like he expected her to blow out a bulkhead any second in a fit of rage. It was unnerving, to say the least. She hoped it didn't become a habit.

Shepard swallowed and nodded, leaning back in her seat and dropping her eyes. "Yeah, I'm here. Sorry. Did you say something?"

"No, and neither have you. Not since we broke atmo."

Shepard shrugged, touching a few keys on the glowing interface in front of her seat. _167.4 kilometers to destination._ "It's just weird, I guess. Being back on Earth."

"Technically," Tali interjected from the back of the shuttle, "you're not on Earth at all." Shepard heard a shuffle and footsteps as Tali maneuvered her way up to the cockpit, setting her hands on the backs of her and Garrus' seats. She shot Shepard a pointed look. "You're still on the Citadel, _remember_?"

Shepard smiled, looking up at the quarian. "Right. Thanks for that cover story, by the way."

"No problem. Rigging it up was child's play."

"Any word from the rest of the crew?" Shepard asked.

Tali pulled up her omnitool. "Jack, Miranda, and Grunt are about an hour away from the city," she informed the commander, faceplate reflecting the scrolling text in front of her. "Everyone else is still stuck in customs on Luna Base, but it shouldn't be long before they're through. EDI is speeding the process up, I'm sure."

"Good. Keep me updated."

"Of course, Shepard."

Out of the corner of her eye, Shepard saw Garrus reach forward and flick a talon over the interface next to the wheel, engaging the autopilot. She watched raptly as he tugged on the collar of his armor, loosening the tension from his neck, before he turned to her and gave her The Look—that expression he'd been using on her ever since that night in her cabin. The night they still hadn't talked about.

Shepard dropped her gaze to her hands. She wanted to talk to him—but not now. Not with everything going on. It just wasn't the right time. Shepard wasn't a big believer in opportune moments or anything like that, but she did believe in doing things right.

 _Once we find Nate, I'll tell him. I'll tell him_ everything _._

"We're about two hours out from this place in…" Garrus trailed, glancing at the holographic interface. " _Kansas_?" He phrased it like a question, as if he wasn't sure on the pronunciation.

A soft smile curled Shepard's lips. "The Sunflower State. Welcome to the least-interesting place on Earth."

Raising a browplate, Garrus pulled up his omnitool and typed a few short commands. "Known for growing corn and wheat, whatever those are," he muttered, eyes scanning the text. "Topography's pretty flat, only two or three big cities… what's this place have to do with wizards?"

She snorted softly. "That's a reference to an old human movie. Maybe we can watch it someday, but if we do, we'll definitely watch the third remake. The fourth one got terrible reviews."

"Noted."

"How long do we have until we get there?" Tali asked.

Garrus glanced over at the glowing display behind the wheel. "About two hours, give or take."

"Good," she chirped, turning to Shepard. Her eyes were bright and eager behind her faceplate. "That gives us plenty of time to talk."

"Talk," Shepard intoned. Automatically, she felt the walls going up around her mind, locking into place to keep out intruders, even though they'd been guaranteed entry. For the millionth time that day, Shepard wished she could have worn her armor on this trip. It made her feel safe.

If Tali noticed the commander's sudden stiffness, she pretended not to. "Yes, talk. Now that we're disconnected from the _Normandy's_ systems, you promised you would tell us a little bit about what we're about to walk into. It's not that I don't trust you to lead us, Shepard, but—"

"But you don't want to go in blind. I get that," she finished. Shepard could feel Garrus' gaze on her from across the cockpit, heavy and piercing as if he could see straight through her. She didn't look up, scared of what she might see reflected in his expression. "Well… what do you want to know?"

"Whatever you feel we need to know," Garrus told her. Tali looked disappointed that he hadn't said _everything_ , but she wisely stayed quiet.

Despite her indomitable resolve under stressful situations, Shepard found herself fidgeting uncomfortably under their combined scrutiny. "Let me think for a minute. Jesus, I don't even know where to start."

"The beginning?" Tali suggested.

Shepard shook her head. "You both know I suck at telling stories. I need something more specific than 'the beginning'. Reciting my entire life from start to finish would bore you to tears."

"I somehow doubt that," Garrus quipped.

Shepard ignored him. "How about you guys ask me some simple questions and we'll go from there? I'll fill in details where they're needed." Shepard suggested, sinking back into her seat and bracing herself for the worst.

Garrus didn't miss a beat. "Who's this contact of yours?"

That was an easy one. "My parents were in the Alliance with him," Shepard explained. "He was a marine in the same unit as my father, and they fought together during the First Contact War. His name is Tiberius Chatham, but Nate and I always called him Uncle Tib for short."

"Uncle?" Tali asked, confused.

"No blood relation," Shepard assured her. "After Nate and I left Chicago, Tib got custody of us and took us out to the country to live for a few years. I think I was about fifteen. Nate was eleven."

"So you think your uncle might know why your brother was in the city in the first place," Garrus said.

"Exactly. Nate lives a few miles away from my Uncle, so I know they're probably still in contact. On the off chance that Tib doesn't know anything, we'll get back in this shuttle and head straight for the city."

Garrus' subvocals thrummed lowly. "Why'd you leave the city?"

 _Gaping wounds and the sticky feeling in her shoes and the heat, the horrible, horrible waning warmth of extinguished life trickling down beneath the rusted rails—_

Shepard glanced up at Garrus, pushing the thoughts aside. She shook her head. "Not important. Next question."

Garrus and Tali exchanged looks. "Shepard," she said quietly, "you promised you wouldn't keep us in the dark."

"And I won't," she insisted, straightening up in her seat. She mindlessly tapped a few buttons on the console in front of her to keep her hands from fidgeting. "You guys need to trust me when I say that it's not an important detail. _Next question_."

Thankfully, they didn't press—a fact for which Shepard was grateful.

Garrus sighed, leaning back in his seat. "If you say so, Shepard. Can you at least tell us some more about Beckett? The guy's obviously got some issues."

Tali agreed. "Yes, he does seem a little bit…"

"Psychotic?" Shepard supplied, cringing. "Yeah, he's one seriously dangerous bastard. Don't underestimate him."

Tali dipped her head and stared at the floor, shuffling her feet. Quietly, she asked, "What he said in the video… about starting with fingernails, I mean. Is that—"

Shepard clenched her jaw. She wished she could lie to them, tell that she had never been that kind of person, change the subject—but Shepard knew they'd see straight through her act.

"Yeah," she murmured. "He, uh. Well, he wasn't lying about that. I wasn't exactly what you would call an upstanding citizen when I lived in Chicago. I did what I had to do to survive and keep Nate safe… and a little more."

"More?" Garrus prompted.

"Again, not important. Stay focused." She leaned back in her seat, pulling her knees up to her chest defensively. She kept her eyes glued to her denim-clad knees, following the tiny stiches with her eyes to distract herself from the memories that were relentlessly flooding her mind. "Beckett is a murderer and a psychopath. He's a first-rate asshole who doesn't care about anyone but himself. We don't want to antagonize him any more than we have to."

"Were you friends?" Garrus asked.

"For a while, yeah. But I didn't have a choice in the matter. Anyway, I—"

"Why didn't you have a choice?"

 _Damn it._

How was she supposed to explain this? It always seems so easy to make your own choices, but Shepard had lived most of her youth living out the choices that people made on her behalf. She didn't have any other options back then; she was too desperate, too naïve. She knew better now, though.

She resisted the urge to pop her knuckles nervously, knowing that it would disgust him—it was still tempting, though. "You guys both had homes growing up, right?"

Garrus and Tali exchanged glances. He nodded, frowning. "Yeah."

"You had families, school, friends—all that stuff."

Tali's silence was all the answer Shepard needed. Garrus' mandibles flared in confusion, obviously not following her train of thought. "What are you getting at, Shepard?"

She clasped her hands together, hugging her knees closer to her chest. "I… well, I didn't have any of that. It was all different for me, and I didn't have a choice about a lot of the stuff that happened to me along the way. It was more of a 'take it and run with it' kind of thing, you know? I mean, when our parents died, we were too young to live on our own. Tib was still in the service and we didn't have any relatives to fall back on, so we were put into the foster system until Tib was discharged or I was old enough to live alone with Nate—whichever came first. We stayed there for a while. Nate and I tried out a couple of homes, but nothing ever stuck since we both had a habit of 'acting out.' In reality, we were just pissed that they were trying to place us with a family instead of waiting for Tib like they promised us."

Shepard's eyes narrowed, becoming sharper than steel. Her voice was low and bitter. "Then I found out they were going to place us in separate homes. I had to improvise. A few days later, Nate and I bolted and tried to make it on our own in the city."

Garrus swiveled his seat toward Shepard and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. "So you found Beckett?"

"Beckett found _us_ ," she corrected. "We were spending some nights at the library in Chicago because it was safer than the local shelter. When the librarians eventually figured it out, we were thrown back onto the street, but we stuck around the area since it was safer than most other places. Beckett found me lifting credit chits from businessmen in the park across the street from the library."

"You were a pickpocket?" Tali asked, surprised.

"I was awful back then, but my biotics gave me an edge in the business, which is what Beckett noticed," she explained, her voice sounding distant as she waded through the memories she'd kept buried for so long. "I was in a pretty bad place when he found me; supporting Nate was harder than I thought it would be, and I was hemorrhaging money trying to keep him fed. When Beckett found me, he told me about the Reds and what they could do for us. He promised me all sorts of stuff: that he'd put Nate back in school, we would be fed, I could make a steady income until I was old enough to claim Nathan as a legal dependent. You know, the usual stuff that convinces a starving twelve year-old to join a gang." Her wry tone faded and a crease appeared between her eyebrows as she frowned. "I was stupid enough to fall for his bullshit. A year later, I got jumped in and started doing official work for the Reds."

"At _thirteen_?" Garrus asked, astonishment evident in his flanging voice.

She raised a hand and wiggled her fingers, which were glowing blue. "Being a natural biotic helped bump me up a few years. And believe me, getting jumped in was easy compared to everything after that."

Tali looked back and forth between them, not understanding. "Forgive me for not knowing as much about this stuff as you guys, but what does jumping have to do with joining a gang?"

"It's an initiation that most groups of criminals do for new recruits," Garrus explained, keeping his eyes trained on Shepard. He was trying to hide his disbelief and failing miserably. "Back in C-Sec, we would always find the ones who didn't make it past the initiation. They were never pretty crime scenes, let me tell you. The ritual depends on the species, but human gangs—"

"I got the shit kicked out of me in an alleyway off Tenth."

For several moments, the only sound was the gentle hum of the shuttle's engines. Shepard avoided looking at either of them and instead distracted herself by running a finger across the freshly-healed scrape on her forearm, which she had received on her way out of the Collector base. She knew her flippant tone was a dead giveaway to how much it hurt to get jumped in, but she hoped no one had really picked up on it.

Tali blinked, sure that she'd misheard the commander. "I'm sorry, what?"

Shepard looked up at her and raised an eyebrow. Slowly, she repeated, "I was beaten half to death in an alleyway one night. Six guys from the higher ranks of Tenth Street ambushed me. It could have been a lot worse, if that makes you feel better."

"That does _not_ make me feel better! Keelah, Shepard, how did you even survive?"

She waved her off dismissively. "I didn't feel anything until they were done with me. Besides, I'm pretty sure they went easy on me since I was so young."

She reclined back in her seat, the picture of ease to Tali's eyes, but Shepard knew Garrus could see straight through her bravado. Even after all this time, she could still feel every blow she'd received that night. Shepard knew she would never be able to forget the feeling of heavy boots cracking mercilessly against her ribs, nor the sensation of hot blood seeping between her teeth and past her lips as she lay on the pavement, too terrified to gasp for the air her lungs so desperately needed.

Shepard let her eyes drift shut and she took a deep breath, as if she could make it up to her thirteen year-old self and the lung that had threatened to collapse all those years ago. Keeping her eyes closed, she continued, "For a while after that, everything was good. Beckett taught me everything he knew. We were best friends."

Garrus frowned. "And now he hates you."

"The feeling is mutual, trust me," Shepard said, her tone suddenly darkening. Her eyes opened and she swiveled her chair, turning to face her companions. Her lips were drawn in a tight line. "It's one thing to threaten me. It's another thing entirely to threaten my brother, my _family_. That son of a bitch is going to wish he'd never laid a finger on Nathan."

At her malicious tone, Garrus flared his mandibles and glanced at Tali, who looked similarly concerned. They exchanged meaningful looks—one that Shepard didn't have time to decipher—and turned back to her. Tali was wringing her hands the way she always did when she was nervous, and Garrus was giving Shepard a long, steady look that gave her the urge to loudly pop her knuckles just so he'd turn away for _one second_.

"So," Shepard started, looking between them. "Next question? We've still got a while before we get there."

Tali cleared her throat, dragging Shepard's attention back to her. "I can't think of anything else right now. Shepard, I'm going to sit in the back and see if I can help Legion narrow down the search area from here." She glanced at Garrus. "I'll be listening to music, too. So… I won't be able to hear anything if you say something. To me. Or to each other, for that matter."

Garrus sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. "Very subtle, Tali."

" _Bosh'tet_ ," she grumbled. "Like you could come up with anything better. I'll be in the back, all right?"

Shepard raised an eyebrow as Tali turned and left the cockpit, retreating to sit on one of the benches in the back before pulling up her omnitool and starting to type furiously. Across from her, Garrus massaged his scarred mandible—one of his nervous habits, Shepard knew.

"You're starting to worry me," he murmured.

"I always worry you," she shot back lightly, sinking back into her seat.

Garrus leaned across the aisle, tapping a dulled talon against her knee. "You're worrying me more than usual, I guess I should say."

His finger lingered against her knee. Shepard knew she should have moved away, but for some unexplainable reason, she sat perfectly still, her eyes trained on his hand. "I'm fine, Garrus. Really."

"…right."

* * *

 **Credit to my mom for proofreading this. I'm pretty she loves Garrus more than I do, honestly.**

 **Also, sorry for the brevity of this chapter. I wanted to give you something in Shepard's POV but I can't give everything away just yet. Love you all!**


	7. Chapter 6

**Sorry, I had to take a break. I'm getting married in two weeks, and things are crazy! This will probably be the last update until June, when things calm down. Don't hate me! This is when it finally starts getting good. Expect Garrus and Shepard fluff in the next couple chapters. Maybe.**

* * *

There always comes a point after saying something so many times that it begins to sound more like noise than anything else.

 _I'm fine._

 _I'm fine._

 _I'mfine_

 _Imfine_

Garrus wondered if he should start keeping tally of how many times she said it. He'd given her plenty of opportunities to talk to him on the shuttle ride, to let him help shoulder the burden she insisted on carrying, but she hadn't taken him up on his offers. I'm fine, she kept saying. I'm _fine._ It got a little less convincing every time; her voice almost didn't sound like the Commander Shepard he knew, but then again, he couldn't blame her.

As Garrus lowered the shuttle and engaged the landing sequence of the Kodiak, he glanced at the woman in question. Since their conversation two hours prior, she had not moved from her seat. Instead, she had turned her body away from his and activated one of the external cameras to watch the scenery as they flew over the countryside. The only time she spoke was to give him directions.

 _Go thirty kilometers north of the river_ , she told him.

 _Avoid flying over the small town_.

 _Don't scare those cows._

She was backseat driving, but he didn't mind. At least she was saying _something_.

The entire time, he wondered what she was thinking about. As much as she tried to convince him otherwise, Garrus knew she wasn't okay—not really, anyway. She was obviously still reeling from the events of the last twenty-four hours, but he knew she'd sooner fight a Reaper with her bare fists than admit that to anyone. Commander Shepard was _fine_. She was always fine, even when she wasn't. Still, it was hard for Garrus to dismiss the lines of strain around her eyes and the taut line of her mouth that bespoke her concern for her brother.

Her eyes were scanning the information that rolled across her copiloting interface, brow set low in concentration. "Steady," she warned him.

Shakily, Garrus set the shuttle down in the clearing to which Shepard had directed him. It was a small, empty patch of soft grass smack-dab in the middle of a large field full of tall plants he didn't recognize. (No surprise there.) The overgrown glade didn't seem to serve any kind of purpose as far as he could tell, but the Kodiak's sensors told him that there was a small gravel road that led directly north from the clearing; Shepard certainly seemed to know where she was going and had a plan in mind, not that she shared this information with him or Tali. Since he valued his life, he didn't dare voice his questions.

He heard her take a deep breath and exhale slowly through her nose as the engines cooled with a muffled hiss. Garrus heard Tali shuffling around in the back of the Kodiak as she gathered their things and laid out their weapons so they could disembark, but at his side, Shepard made no move to get up. The engines whined quietly as the shuttle powered down.

Just as he was about to say something—though what, he wasn't sure—Shepard quietly interrupted him.

"Have you ever jumped off of something really tall?" she asked, her words heavy with something akin to wistfulness. "And I mean super tall, like a building or out of a drop shuttle."

He blinked at her uncomprehendingly. Of all the things he expected Shepard to say, this wasn't anywhere on that list. "Yeah, I guess so. We did training exercises like that back when I was in the military. Why?"

"Have you ever done it without a jump-jet to break your fall?"

"I'm alive right now, so no. What are you getting at, Shepard?"

She gave him a mirthless smile; he tried to remember the last time he had seen her smile—really smile, all bright teeth and crinkled eyes—but he couldn't recall. "I feel like I'm on top of a building and I forgot to pack my jump-jet, but I'm going to jump off anyway."

Oh.

He knew that feeling: your stomach flips and your chest feels like it's about to burst wide open, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. It was the feeling they'd both had when they flew through the Omega-4 relay into the unknown, and afterwards when they limped back into dry dock, the crew completely at the Council's mercy. He'd also experienced something similar when he found himself standing outside of Shepard's door with a terrible bottle of wine, wearing civvies that were heinously out of fashion and didn't fit him quite right.

She was _nervous._

Garrus hummed in sympathy, his mandibles clicking. Activating the coolant system for the Kodiak's engines, he swiveled his chair toward her and stood up and shrugged. "I don't see why you're nervous, Shepard. You're a biotic."

Her face soured even more as she gave him an incredulous look. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"You _are_ a jump-jet."

She paused, considering this. Garrus held back a victorious flare of his mandibles as one corner of her mouth turned up in legitimate amusement. _Finally._ "And endure the migraine afterwards? No thank you."

"You'd rather fall to your death than have a headache?"

"A migraine is not just a _headache_."

"Sure it isn't."

"Have you ever had one?"

He stopped to think for a moment. "Uh… well, no. Not exactly."

"Then you have no room to comment."

He heard her words, but he knew what she truly meant.

 _I'm fine._

Rolling his eyes good-naturedly, Garrus held out a hand to help Shepard to her feet. She looked at his outstretched hand skeptically for a moment and, for one horrifying second, he thought she would scoff and stand up on her own. So when she finally placed her smaller, softer hand in his, he let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. He yanked her to her feet and reached around her slight frame to grab her duffel bag from behind her seat, which he slung over his shoulder.

He gestured widely toward the back of the Kodiak, where Tali was waiting for them both. "Ladies first."

She turned to leave, but paused in the threshold of the cockpit as his words sank in. He knew she would turn around before she even did it. "Okay," Shepard drawled skeptically, one eyebrow raised, "I _know_ Joker didn't teach you that one."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said innocently. For the millionth time, he was thankful that humans didn't understand turian subvocals. Solana always said he was a terrible liar.

Shepard jabbed a finger in his face. "Turians don't hold doors open for women because you guys had your feminist revolution-thing a thousand years ago, and I know Joker's been tutoring you after dinner in the starboard lounge every couple of nights. Don't lie to me, Vakarian," she said, but the small smile tugging at her lips betrayed her serious tone.

 _Damn_. "How'd you figure it out?"

"It's my ship," she said simply, "and Joker has a big mouth. Side note, he would never be that polite to any woman. Ever. Now tell me who it was."

"Miranda."

"I don't think I've ever seen you two talk to each other outside of the conference room. Try again."

"Jack."

"That's not even remotely believable."

"Grunt?" he tried.

"What, are you going to go through the entire ship's roster or something?"

"Well, I _can_."

She threw up her hands exasperatedly. "Garrus, come on—"

He held up a hand to stop her mid-sentence, flaring his mandibles in a small smile. As amusing as it was to watch Shepard get worked up about something, he knew they couldn't stay in the Kodiak all day, try as she might to stall the inevitable. "All right, all right," he relented. "It was Kasumi, if you really must know. She yelled at me for not holding the door open for her when we were on the Citadel a few weeks back. I'd rather not repeat the experience, if it's all the same to you."

Shepard pondered this for a few moments. She still looked skeptical, but a flash of begrudging acceptance flashed through her eyes. "I… suppose that makes sense."

She pursed her lips, and Garrus knew she wanted to say more but had decided against it for some reason. Tilting his head to the side, Garrus asked, "What it to you, anyway?"

"I don't know." Shepard shrugged. She raked a hand through her hair. "I've just never heard you say that before. It was chivalrous. And _very_ human, I might add."

"Just being polite."

"Polite. Sure."

She smiled at him then—a real smile, not one of the strained grimaces she'd been handing out over the last several hours—and suddenly, Garrus forgot what he was going to say next. As silence filled the space between them, Garrus was brought to the realization of how cramped the cockpit truly was. She was so _close_. He could see each individual freckle on the bridge of Shepard's nose, scattered across her olive skin like constellations, and he could make out the smattering of tiny silver scars near her temple; she never told him where she'd gotten those, but after everything Shepard told him earlier that morning, maybe he didn't want to know.

…or maybe he did.

It was a strange feeling, that. The yearning—no, the _need_ —to know everything about Shepard's past, present, and future, but that unrelenting urge was always accompanied by overwhelming uncertainty. In a way, she reminded him of the salarian puzzle box his mother had given him for his ninth birthday. He remembered spending weeks agonizing over that box, staying up late under the covers with nothing but the light of an extremely out-of-date omnitool to spur him on. It seemed that no matter how many different ways he turned the box over in his hands, there was always a new clasp or hidden lever to be found. Some of them were decoys, meant to distract him from the real solution, and others were levers that would reset the entire thing and he would be forced to start all over.

Shepard, with her myriad of secrets and the pile of skeletons that no doubt hid in her closet, was like that puzzle box. One wrong move, an ill-timed wry comment, or a question that was too direct risked resetting the entire mechanism. Her jokes were the decoy switches and the buttons that distracted Garrus from the real prize she kept locked away, hidden behind years of ambiguity and impenetrable layers of armor she spent her whole life forging. But Garrus couldn't open Shepard by smashing her with a hammer, like he had done to the puzzle box all those years ago. Nothing was ever that easy with her.

 _One wrong move._

He couldn't risk resetting the puzzle box. He'd come so far.

 _Pull back._

…but she was so _close_.

 _Wait for reinforcements._

There was a crease between her delicately arched brows. It was the same face she always wore whenever she was faced with a potentially explosive situation—literally or figuratively, though it was more often the former of the two. She didn't know what to expect and didn't want to assume anything, because assumptions got you killed, both on the battlefield and off of it. Shepard was careful like that. He could practically hear her mind working, scanning his face the same way she would check the corners of a room for threats before entering. Sweep right, sweep left, and keep your finger off the trigger until hostile presence was confirmed. Instinct.

He really didn't like having that expression turned on him.

Before he could help himself, Garrus reached out and touched the small indentation between her eyebrows, smoothing it out with a dulled talon to relieve the tension and uncertainty that lined her face. His hand lingered near her face, barely brushing one of her sharp cheekbones, and he couldn't help but drop his gaze to her lips. Spirits, how he loved her mouth. It was so—

 _Full retreat._

The distance between them seemed to widen, although neither of them moved from their spots. The cockpit was no longer cramped and stifling, but cold. Hollow. Subdued, like a candle had been abruptly blown out and all that remained was the faint smell of hot wax and smoke that lingered in the air around them, a subtle reminder of what could have been. Garrus dropped his hand back to his side, clenching his hand into a fist to keep in control. A strange expression crossed Shepard's face as she sensed the change, too, though Garrus couldn't say for sure what the expression was. If he didn't know better, he'd say she was disappointed—confused?—but the expression was gone too quickly for him to know for sure.

He wanted to say something. He _knew_ he should say something. Dammit, what was he supposed to say? He watched as Shepard's lips parted, poised to make a sarcastic quip and pull his ass from the fire yet again, when another voice miraculously saved them both.

"Uh, guys?" Tali called out from the back, startling them. The quarian was glancing between them and the door, which was still sealed shut. "You know you have to unlock the door before we can leave, right?"

And just like that, the spell was broken.

"Right. The door." Shepard breathed. She looked up at Garrus and raised an eyebrow. "Well, that's your job, _pilot._ "

And with that, she turned and swept out of the cockpit as if he hadn't just been about to lean in and press his forehead against hers. The electricity that seemed to follow her everywhere she went dissipated as soon as she was gone. Garrus watched as she stepped over next to Tali and they began to murmur inaudibly to each other. Spirits, how could she act so damn casual?

Once the door locks were overridden, Garrus joined them in the back of the shuttle. He noticed that Shepard was busy readjusting the ever-present pistol strapped to her hip, carefully avoiding his eyes, which made Garrus' mouth sour imperceptibly. Tali handed him his rifle, which he gratefully accepted and attached to his back. He probably wouldn't need it for meeting her uncle, but he'd been wrong before.

Finally, the shuttle door began to slide open, the pneumatic seals hissing and popping loudly. Shepard and Tali both winced as the pale morning sunlight spilled into the hold and they all shielded their eyes from the unusually bright sun. Nobody spoke.

Garrus wasn't sure what he expected. He'd seen pictures of Earth before and watched a few vids about the human homeworld back when he was in school, but he didn't consider himself to be an expert by any means; he knew about a famous city called London and a terrifying place Shepard called Australia that was full of animals that wanted to kill you, but _Kansas_ was a complete unknown to him. He knew that Earth had numerous ecosystems with vastly different climate zones, and that over half the world was covered with salt water. He always thought it would be nice to live on a planet like that—Palaven was hot and humid pretty much everywhere, the poles notwithstanding, and the seasons hardly changed at all. Had he the opportunity to travel the galaxy for mere shits and giggles, he probably would have made the human homeworld his first pit stop.

Nothing Shepard told him about the area prepared him for what he saw.

As their eyes adjusted to the sudden onslaught of sunlight, Garrus heard Tali whisper, " _Keelah_ , Shepard. It's… beautiful."

It was. The grassy clearing they had landed in was lush and vibrant with assorted flowers and a few trees here and there, but beyond the edge of the clearing lay an ocean of tall plants with narrow, flat leaves that we planted in precise rows. The plants stretched for miles in every visible direction, undulating in the gentle, warm breeze that smelled strangely sweet in a way that Garrus had never known before. The entire area was flatter than any land he'd ever seen before—it had to be terraformed, right? There was no way that land this flat could occur naturally.

Sporadically placed throughout the enormous field were large metal harvester VIs that towered hundreds of feet up into the air above the tall plants; some were half-rusted, others looked as sleek as though they had been purchased yesterday. They shifted and groaned from exertion as their thick mechanical limbs stretched above the field to water the plants around them, and Garrus could see the occasional drone float by the gargantuan harvesters to dust the crops with what he assumed was either fertilizer or pesticides. From where he stood, they looked as tiny as flies next to the harvester machines.

Garrus could hear Tali mumbling to herself and taking pictures with her omnitool like a damned tourist ("If the Flotilla could eat levo, this would be a _goldmine_ for the agriculture ships!"), but next to him, Shepard said absolutely nothing. Instead, she looked across the seemingly-endless sea of greenery with a weary look in her eyes, her lips drawn into a thin line. He heard her swallow thickly, and she dropped her gaze to the grassy ground below them both. She should have looked happy to be on her homeworld, but Garrus thought she looked anything _but_ happy. In fact, she looked like she'd unknowingly stumbled into a nest of rachni that she didn't have time to deal with. She was frustrated, but why?

"I can see for miles," Tali murmured, awestruck. She turned to Shepard with wide eyes. "I'm probably biased since I don't actually have a planet to live on, but this place is _gorgeous_ , Shepard. It's like the view from the top of a mountain without actually having to climb it. And the machinery…" she trailed dreamily. "I've never seen original human machinery before. Everything in Council space always has influences from the other races."

"What, the harvesters?" Shepard asked incredulously. "Those things are annoying as hell. They break down all the time—at least, they used to break down all the time when I lived here. Nate and I were always the ones who had to fix them when their programming went sour."

"Harvesters," Garrus said flatly. "That's awfully smiliar to—"

"Reapers. Yeah, I know. The irony is not lost on me, Garrus."

"At least these look considerably friendlier."

"You're right about that. They don't go one and on about being the vanguard of our destruction and all that garbage. No lasers, either."

"That certainly makes me feel better," Tali quipped, chuckling. "Still, I can't believe you got to live here. I can't believe how beautiful it is."

Garrus hummed in amusement. "I don't know, Tali. Tuchanka is still at the top of my list for most beautiful planets. The rubble and thresher maws really give it a… _homey_ touch."

Next to him, Shepard snorted softly. "I'll make sure Wrex knows that. Maybe he'll send you some real estate brochures, though I don't think any of the other krogan will take nicely to having a turian around."

"You're probably right. I guess this place will have to be my second choice."

"I feel like I should be insulted by that."

"You're not?"

"Not really, since this place is frozen over half of the year. You might want to stick to Palaven for the heat, lizard boy," she mused, scanning the distant horizon. She was staring out across the field with a peculiar expression on her face. Her eyes were clouded and distant as she surveyed the open field as if she was looking for something specific, although Garrus got the feeling she wasn't really seeing anything at all.

As soon as she noticed him watching her, the look on her face disappeared and was replaced with a determined set of her jaw. Shepard squared her shoulders and hopped lightly out of the Kodiak. "We'd better get going. We've got about two kilometers to walk and we're burning daylight."

Tali blinked. "Two _kilometers_? Why can't we just fly there?"

"My uncle was a paranoid old bastard when I left, and I don't imagine he's gotten any better in the past twelve years. If he saw a Cerberus shuttle approaching his house, I guarantee we wouldn't get a friendly welcome." Garrus stepped down next to Shepard and handed over her duffel bag when she reached for it. She beckoned them forward. "Let's move, people."

* * *

If Shepard was being completely honest with herself, she had no idea what she was doing.

For thirty minutes she led them down the worn, gravel path that Shepard knew led straight to her uncle's house— _her_ house, she had to remind herself. The property was still under her name, technically, but she didn't know how being dead for two years affected things like that. For all she knew, Nate was the legal owner now. She hoped he had taken care of the place like mom and dad wanted.

The duffel bag full of her armor, weapons, and other provisions bounced uncomfortably against her hip as the three of them walked the seemingly-endless path that split the giant cornfield; it would be a good harvest this year, she noticed. The sound of crunching gravel beneath her feet provided a soothing backdrop against the softly rustling stalks of corn and the birdsongs that floated on the wind. The sun was warm against her skin just the way it used to be.

It was different. It was the same. She couldn't really explain it, even if she wanted to.

The gravity was heavier than it was on the _Normandy_. That much was for sure. The air smelled like wildflowers and freshly-laid fertilizer; not an unpleasant smell, but a far cry from the sharp smell of recycled air on her ship. She recognized the small white house on the far side of the cornfield—the Larsons probably still lived there—and silently congratulated the family on the bountiful harvest they were most likely going to have a few months from now. Shepard even recognized a few of the harvester mechs; the older, more rusted machines all had been given names once upon a time, though she couldn't recall them at that moment. The newer models were unfamiliar.

Tali and Garrus had fallen into their normal positions behind Shepard. She could hear them murmuring to each other as they marveled at the spectacular vista that surrounded them. Occasionally, she would answer a question about the cornfield, the native plant life, or the mechs that were placed every half kilometer throughout the fields. They seemed impressed by how flat the land was and it took her several minutes to convince that that _no,_ it had not been terraformed or augmented in any way. But the closer they got to Tib's house, the quieter they became until the only noise between them was the sound of their footsteps.

As the sun crept higher in the pale sky of the early morning, Shepard became more and more nervous. She had no idea what to expect from Tib—he might not have a lead on Nate at all. Maybe they were wasting their time out here. They should have gone to the city instead of making this pit stop. Thousands of _what ifs_ raced through her head with every single step, and by the time the gravel road forked and Shepard directed the trio to the left toward her old house, she was wound up tighter than a spring.

"How much farther is this place?" Tali asked suddenly, breaking the uneasy quiet.

Shepard glanced back over her shoulder. "Not far."

"How far is 'not far?'"

"See the little blue house near that rusty harvester?" she asked, pointing at the horizon. "No, not that one. The one behind it. _That's_ where we're going."

The house in question was tiny next to the behemoth that stood next to it, but the pale blue siding and the large patch of flat grass it stood in made the house obvious to everyone. There was nothing around it for miles, save the half-grown cornfield—out in the bald open, her mother used to say to her father. If someone had a telescope on the bluff six miles away, they would be able to look in the windows and see what kind of material her shirt was made out of. The visibility of the house used to bother Shepard when she was a scrappy teenager devoted to hiding from the Reds, but the obvious speck of blue in the sea of fluttering green plants gave present-day Shepard more comfort than she thought it would.

Garrus raised a browplate as he squinted at the house. "It's not exactly well-hidden."

She looked over her shoulder at him, rolling her eyes. "It's a house, not a military bunker," she told him flatly. "What were you expecting?"

"I don't know. I guess I just expected your childhood home to have more guns and mayhem in the immediate vicinity."

"You're unbelievable."

"Well, I'm just saying—"

"The house is old," she interrupted. "It's out in the open like that because it used to be in the middle of a decently-sized patch of trees about two hundred years ago, or so my dad told me. The Larsons," she explained, pointing to the house at the opposite end of the field, "bought the surrounding land and turned it into a commercial biofuel cornfield about eighty years back. My family gets a cut of their profits every harvest as part of their contract with them."

"How long has your family lived here?" Tali asked.

Shepard's footsteps faltered briefly at her question. "My dad's side of the family has lived here since the 1800s, give or take a couple decades. Nate and I… we, uh—well, we broke that tradition."

"Sore subject?" Garrus ventured.

"It's not something I'm proud of."

She knew they wanted to ask more. Shepard could feel their curiosity brimming as they continued to walk, but she couldn't bring herself to strike up friendly conversation to keep them all distracted. Even blasting her way through the Collector base hadn't been _this_ nerve-wracking. Still, her nerves didn't stop her from smiling when Tali reached out and plucked leaves off the corn stalks that lined the road and analyzed them with her omnitool, muttering about research and plant fibers.

When they finally arrived at the end of the gravel road, they stopped at the fence that separated the grassy lawn from the edge of the massive cornfield. Shepard had to remind herself to breathe as she rested her hands on the top of the fence, leaning heavily against it. Her eyes drifted over the scene before her.

 _Sweet Jesus, what am I_ doing _?_

The house itself was in good shape, as far as Shepard could tell. The light blue paint that coated the weathered siding was a little faded, but not peeling or cracked like she expected it to be, and the white wraparound porch had recently been swept clean; the old porch swing rocked back and forth in the soft breeze with a gentle creaking noise that sounded oh-so familiar to Shepard's ears, reminding her of long afternoons spent on the swing with Nathan as they shucked corn for dinner. There were clothes hung on the line in the side yard, flapping lazily in the breeze—she spied a few simple white shirts and a pair of well-worn jeans covered in oil stains—and she could see the corner of the prefab building attached to the old garage at the back of the house.

It was all so painfully familiar. Aside from the larger lilac bushes and the new landscaping around the house—Nate's doing, probably—it all looked exactly the same as it did when she left to join the Alliance. Not a shingle was out of place. Shepard half-expected to look up and find Nate sprawled out on the porch swing with a hand-written research journal from their mother's lab, poring over her old botany notes with the end of a pen in his mouth and a furrow between his brows that matched Shepard's. She could practically hear Uncle Tib calling from the kitchen for him to put the damned book away and do some chores for once, but Nate always pretended he couldn't hear him.

The short, white picket fence that separated the lawn from the dense cornfield was the only thing keeping Shepard from stepping onto her family's property. She could have stepped over it if she wanted to, it was so short, but she felt like she'd taken a shotgun blast of cryo ammo to the chest and couldn't move an inch. The small gate taunted her with each shift of the winds, creaking louder and louder the longer she stood there, frozen in place.

This was supposed to feel like coming home, right? It was supposed to feel _good_.

Shepard didn't feel that way at all. Rather, she felt like she was about to have a heart attack and die right there on the spot. Sadly, between keeling over and speaking to her uncle, the heart attack seemed like the more appealing option.

She felt Garrus step closer to her, falling into his usual place at her right shoulder. "Orders, Shepard?"

She almost didn't hear him. He floated in her peripherals; his mandibles were fluttering nervously as he glanced back and forth between the house and her face, and his subharmonics were tinged with some kind of emotion she couldn't quite place, but sounded shamefully close to worrisome. Garrus was better than most turians when it came to human facial expressions, so Shepard knew there was no way he missed the panicked set of her jaw, and his visor was probably telling him how fast her heart was beating.

Shepard curled a thumb around her index finger and squeezed, popping her knuckle. Orders. She could do that. "All right, you two wait here for a minute," she told them, reaching for the gate's latch. "I'll scout ahead and see if the old man's inside."

"We'll be here, Shepard," Tali told her, nodding resolutely.

The gate swung wide, arcing outward toward the house, and Shepard took a deep breath before stepping across the property line for the first time in twelve years. She expected something to blow up. When it didn't, the tension eased out of her chest like a shard of melting ice.

The front walkway had been repaved. Her boots landed heavily against the cement, sounding louder then she expected and loud enough to make her uncomfortable; a noisy approach was an easy way to get yourself killed. Shepard tried to remind herself that this wasn't a battlefield.

 _Go in, get the information, get out. Go in, get the information, get out._

It was supposed to be easy, but she knew it was only a matter of time before something went horribly, horribly wrong. She expected nothing less from one of her ground missions.

Thankfully, Uncle Tiberius didn't make her wait.

She saw the bullet slice through the air before she fully processed the deafening sound of the gunshot. It felt wrong not to shout for her team, charge, and wreak havoc like usual, but she managed to rein in her instincts just in time. Shepard merely froze in place and kept her feet planted as she watched the bullet bury itself in the ground directly in front of her toes, missing her by millimeters. It didn't take long for Shepard to assess the situation and react accordingly. In an instant, she let the strap of her bag slide off her shoulder and fall to the ground, the plates of her hardsuit clattering noisily within the canvas lining. She took a deep breath through her nose. Slowly, she stretched her hands out to either side of her body, inching them up and away from the pistol that was clearly strapped to her hip.

"Shepard!" Garrus shouted, his subvocals flanging with restrained alarm. Two sets of footsteps approached her from behind.

"Nobody move!" she barked, not taking her eyes off the windows of the house and forming one hand into a fist to tell them to hold their ground. The footsteps ceased, but she heard the telltale sound of Garrus' rifle extending to its full length. "Back up to where you were. _Slowly_. Stay behind the gate until I say otherwise. That's an order, both of you."

The sound of retreating footfalls told her they were back in their places, though they obviously weren't happy about it. Her eyes darted between the windows of the house—one of the second-story windows was cracked open, but she couldn't see the barrel of a gun sticking out of it, so Tib had to be positioned somewhere else. Where the hell was he aiming from? There were only so many vantage points on the house, and nobody knew where they were better than Shepard.

Taking a deep breath, Shepard shifted her right foot forward through the grass; it wasn't a full step, but it was enough to earn another bullet in the ground at her toes to keep her from moving any further. She grit her teeth. _Typical._

"All right, Tib," she called out, her voice carrying across the clearing. For the millionth time, she wished she'd tied up her hair before leaving the _Normandy_ —the wavy strands kept blowing into her eyes. She held her hands up high and squinted as she scanned the house and the front lawn. "Enough of your games. I'm here to talk to you about Nathan."

She waited, straining to hear her uncle's gruff voice, but heard nothing more than the songbirds and the rustling of the surrounding cornfield.

"Shepard," Tali called out, sounding tense. "I'm not picking up any heat signatures from inside the house. It might be a motion-sensitive turret set to guard the house."

"No, he's here. Keep scanning," she told them. Clearing her throat, Shepard raised her voice again. "Drop the tinfoil hat act, Chatham. Come out and talk to me. We can be adults about this."

No response.

"I don't like this," she heard Garrus mumble.

She didn't like it either. Shepard had expected her uncle to shoot first and ask questions later, but she figured she would at least have the option of talking him down first. This… this was strange. She had to draw him out and work from there.

She laced her fingers behind her head, bracing her arms there as she looked for him. "Last I checked, Tiberius, this property is under my name. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have every right to legally kick your ass from here to next Tuesday without a second thought. Be smart about this, sir."

Shepard waited. Her eyes darted from window to window, looking for any kind of movement, but saw nothing more than drapes fluttering in the wind behind the open glass panes.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are…" she taunted.

 _One._

 _Two._

 _Three._

"Name and rank, soldier."

Shepard's chest deflated and the exhaled a small, quiet laugh. She couldn't help the small smile that split her face at the sound of his familiar voice, but she still couldn't see where Tib was. She stood at attention, saluting. "Commander Jane M. Shepard, sir. At your service."

"Try again."

Shepard's smile faltered, and a frown creased her brow. Her hand dropped. "Sorry, what?"

"I said _try again_ ," Tib said, his voice bouncing around the lawn. The breeze carried his voice from fifty different directions, disorienting Shepard. What the hell was he trying to do?

"Tib," she said flatly. "It's me. I just need to ask you a few questions about Nathan, then I'll be out of your hair."

"Commander Jane Shepard was killed in action two and a half years ago," the man ground out, his voice tinged with bitterness and thinly-veiled anger. Somewhere to her left, she heard the telltale pop of a heat sink and the metallic scrape of a new one being pushed into place, but when she glanced over to where he should have been, Tib was not there.

"Now I am going to ask you one more time," he told her, his voice dangerously low. "Who are you and why are you wearing Commander Shepard's face? Are you a clone or somethin'? 'Cause I saw that Cerberus shuttle you rode in on, so you'd better be straight with me. If you tell the truth, I'll kill you quickly."

Shepard couldn't help it. Old habits die hard, she always said.

Rebelliousness rose in her chest at his condescending tone of voice, which was a far cry from the gruff, harsh warmth of the voice he usually reserved for her. She rolled her eyes and sighed exasperatedly. "For fuck's sake, Tib, it's _me_. Enough with this goddamn paranoid threatrical production and help me find my brother because we've only got six days before he gets killed, and I don't want that any more than you do."

"Five and a half," Tali called out from behind Shepard. Her voice was hard. Shepard didn't have to look over her shoulder to know that Tali was prepared to sic her drone on Tib without a second thought, wherever he was hiding.

"All right, five and a half days," Shepard amended.

There was a pause. Finally, Tib called out, sounding further away and off to her right somewhere, "You're a clever clone, I'll give you that. You sound exactly like her."

"Maybe because I _am_ her? Jesus," she cursed, losing her patience. "Do you want me to prove it to you?"

"You can try."

Shepard's jaw set and her eyes sharpened into steel. She took a deep breath through her nose to compose herself. They didn't have time for this kind of garbage—no, _Nate_ didn't have time. She had to end this and end it fast.

Shepard shrugged. "Uh, well… you gave me a live grenade for my fifteenth birthday and I blew up your car on accident. You made me run laps around the Larson's cornfield until I passed out."

"There would be records of that. Too easy. Two more tries, princess, and then I'll blow your fuckin' head off."

Shepard muttered angrily and breathed deeply, counting to ten in an attempt to control her temper. She remembered everything Samara had taught her about control back on the _Normandy_.

 _Your temper is your greatest weapon and your worst enemy. Do not use it unless you have to._

If only it was really that easy.

Shepard wracked her brain, trying to come up with something that would convince her uncle she wasn't a clone. "You were the best man at my parents' wedding and my mom wanted to murder you because you slept with the maid of honor in a closet. Sophie, I think her name was."

"Even if that were true," Tib ground out, his voice sounding significantly tenser than it had a minute ago, "Jane wasn't born when that happened. I want _fact_ , not hearsay. One more chance before I shoot you, girl, or you can take the easy way out and turn around and never come back here. Save me the trouble of hiding your bodies."

She tried to hold it in—really, she did—but her temper finally got the best of her, blue sparks skittering across her skin as pure rage blossomed in her chest. She did _not_ have time for this.

"Listen here, you paranoid motherfucking hillbilly," she snapped, dropping her hands to her sides. She clenched her fists and glared furiously at the house as if she was directing her anger at the front door. "You're Major Tiberius Chatham and you served with my parents in the First Contact War until they died on Shanxi, and I know you blame yourself for their deaths even though it wasn't your fault. You enjoy shooting Amazon delivery drones and drinking shitty whisky on the front porch and you taught me how to be a good soldier that my father would be proud of. You hate pasta because it feels like glue in your mouth, you have three tattoos on your leg of the names of the women you've loved, and you keep your condoms in a pair of blue argyle socks in your nightstand." Shepard stopped, taking a breath to calm her emotions. "Now, if we're all done playing the guessing game, I'd appreciate it if you would _let me in my own goddamn house so we can talk_."

There was no sound for the longest time. Shepard heard Garrus and Tali shuffle nervously, clearly wanting to move up but inclined to obey their orders. Shepard ignored them both and listened intently, trying to pick out her uncle's exact location.

She hoped it would work. She had no idea if it would—Tib could reason his way out of anything, even if his reasoning made no sense whatsoever—but she hoped her outburst wouldn't earn her a hole in the chest, at the very least.

Shepard held her breath and waited.

Her ears perked when she heard the sound of electricity fizzling out, and she couldn't help but smile. She did not flinch as her uncle materialized in front of her, dropping the tactical cloak she knew he had been using the entire time. Sneaky bastard must've upgraded it over the years. She was surprised the thing still worked.

He was just as big as she remembered—towering above her with a bandana wrapped around his forehead, his shoulders broader than a doorway and his chest like a barrel—but she didn't feel intimidated like she used to. Instead, she looked up into his tan, weathered face and dropped her hands to her sides, finally relaxing.

The wild-looking man reached out, touching Shepard's cheek with more gentleness than she thought possible. His voice was hardly above a whisper. "Lou? Is it really…"

"Hey, Uncle Tib," she greeted wryly, giving him a sad smile. "I'm home."

* * *

 **Please drop me a review! They make me write faster, and I love hearing from you guys.**


	8. Chapter 7

**I promise I'm not dead! Thanks for sticking with me, guys. As a reward for your patience, here's an extra-long chapter.**

* * *

She had spent years planning out this conversation. She had played the possibilities over and over again in her head until she felt sick with nerves and gone to bed to dream it all over again in horrifying clarity, but her imagination had not done the situation justice. Not at all.

Uncle Tib's craggy, tanned face betrayed nothing. Shepard couldn't exactly blame him; twelve years was a long time to refrain from sending a Christmas card, and coming back from the dead seemed to inspire all sorts of unpleasant emotions in the unlikeliest of people. Her mouth suddenly felt dry, her tongue thick and useless. She searched for something to say to her uncle— _sorry for being dead these past two years_ didn't quite cut it, and the comment would no doubt raise questions that she didn't have the answers to. She had to tell him _something_ … but what?

As Uncle Tib inched closer, Shepard took a deep breath and clenched her teeth. She was ready to deal with whatever reprimand she deserved.

The reaction she received, however, was nothing she expected.

Shepard couldn't help it—when the shadow of her uncle crossed her face, she flinched. But the fist she expected failed to make contact with her face. Instead, Tib's monstrous arms encircled her, crushing her to his chest and lifting her feet up off the ground, practically squeezing the life out of her. His shirt smelled like stale cigar smoke and fabric softener, a comforting mix that brought back memories of sparring in the backyard on warm summer evenings, dodging jabs and grappling with the old man until her shirt was more grass-stained than not.

"Jesus Christ, Lou," Uncle Tib murmured. His gravelly voice vibrated through her body, warm and familiar. "I never thought I'd see you again."

A plastic button on the front of his shirt was digging into the side of her mouth. Struck speechless, Shepard merely grunted in response, twisting her head so she could breathe a little better. _Move your arms, dammit._ With tremendous effort, Shepard shifted her shaky arms to hug him back. She pretended not to feel the lump in her throat.

"When we got the news—"

"Never trust anything that isn't straight from the source," Shepard replied sagely, her voice muffled through his shirt. "You taught me that."

"I'll be damned. Some of my advice got through your thick skull after all," he marveled gruffly, releasing her from his vice-like grip. He kept his meaty hands on her shoulders and peered down into her face, scrutinizing her. "You look different, kiddo."

"I should hope so. Time has been known to have that effect on people."

"Quit bein' a smartass. I meant you look like your mother."

"I—thank you, sir," she said quietly, dropping her gaze to the scuffed toes of her boots. "It means a lot to hear you say that."

"That haircut is a damned disgrace, though," Tib grumbled, reaching up to yank on one of her loose wavy tresses. She winced and massaged her scalp. "Just because you're a Spectre doesn't mean you should be wearing it that long. I taught you better than that."

"Well, I thought you'd appreciate me not showing up in full armor."

"You're right on that account, but it's no reason to be careless."

Shepard felt the tips of her ears get hot. "Yes, sir."

Tib leaned back to get a better look at her. Nothing ever escaped her uncle's notice—the man was more bloodhound than human at times. Nate was the only one who could ever get something past him, and she had never figured out her brother's secret. Every time Shepard tried sneaking out of the house or tucking a knife in her boot before heading into town, Tib _knew_ it.

Shepard fought the urge to squirm beneath his harsh scrutiny. Would he detect the whirring cybernetics beneath her skin? Would he notice the absence of certain scars that had mysteriously disappeared? Would he believe that she wasn't a clone or a puppet controlled by some invisible third party? Hell, even Shepard wasn't sure about that last one.

After what felt like hours of torturous silence, Tib's face finally softened. "I'll admit, seeing you walk up the road dressed like that did throw me for a loop," he mused, looking her up and down. His eyes met hers. "I thought you were your mother back from the dead to yell at me for leaving rings on her coffee table or something like that. Scared the hell out of me for a second."

"Just one second?"

"Maybe two."

Shepard's lips curled up in a smile. "Well, I'm glad you didn't shoot me."

His hard gaze softened a fraction at her words and he squeezed her shoulders, leaning forward as if to share a secret with her. "I always hoped, you know. When they didn't find your body—"

"You should know better than to worry about me. I've disappeared before. Always came back after a while."

" _I_ didn't worry," Tib argued. "Nate was a whole different story, though. I've never seen the kid so pissed at anything, and that's saying something. He threw his datapad when he read the news online, and you know how attached he is to that thing."

"I don't know why you're surprised," she scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest. "He's got mom's temper."

"Like you don't?" Tib shot back. "At least your brother doesn't destroy houses when he throws a tantrum."

"I never destroyed _houses_."

"You came pretty close a couple times."

"Horseshoes and hand grenades, old man," she said stubbornly, crossing her arms over her chest.

Tib raised a disbelieving eyebrow at her, but his eyes were warm. "Lou, you _are_ a hand grenade."

"Hey, I like to think I've got a better hold on my temper these days."

Tib waved her off, ignoring the sour note in his niece's voice. "I knew the Alliance would set you straight one way or another. Anderson seems to have taken pretty good care of you."

Shepard cleared her throat awkwardly and shrugged. She wondered how Anderson was doing back on the Citadel. "Yeah, he kept an eye out. He's the one who recommended me for ICT, believe it or not."

"I wasn't surprised when you made N-school," Tib told her. "That promotion was a long time comin', but I _was_ impressed when you made N7. You've got your daddy's determination, that's for sure. Even he couldn't get past N6."

Tib chuckled, his voice rumbling through the ground beneath Shepard's feet. Despite the situation, she felt herself relax as she smiled along with him, absorbing the warm, familiar sound like she had never left. The whole situation almost felt normal.

Almost.

"Anyway," Tib barked, clapping her on the shoulder, "where have you _been_ for the past two and a half years? You'd better have one hell of an excuse."

"I—," Shepard started.

"What was it, deep-cover? More training with the asari commandos?"

Shepard winced and rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly. This was the part she wasn't looking forward to—lying.

"Well, I… was leading an undercover op in the Terminus systems for a while," she explained slowly, articulating each word carefully. "It was all very hush-hush. You know how these things are. If one person knows about it, then thirty other people know about it, and pretty soon everyone starts getting killed." She shot him a _what are you gonna do?_ smile and prayed that Tib wouldn't question her further.

"Nobody alerted us," he muttered, his voice laced with skepticism. "I'd better call Anderson and give that tight-lipped asshole a piece of my—"

Shepard held up a hand to cut him off. "The mission wasn't sanctioned by the Alliance. It was a Spectre mission, so the Council didn't want me to involve anyone. Even Anderson was out of the loop. No one was supposed to know the truth except me and a few other operatives who were in on the whole thing. Don't take him off your Christmas card list, okay? You'd hurt his feelings."

For several terrifying seconds, he looked like he wasn't going to buy it. Shepard bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood, forcing herself to stand tall under his gaze.

Tib regarded her carefully. "Did you get the job done?"

She let out a breath of relief, nodding. "Yes, sir. Things got a little messy there for a while, but my circumstances improved about two months ago and we managed to pull through with minimal casualties."

It wasn't a lie. Not really. Still, Shepard felt her gut twist.

Even as perceptive as he was, Tib failed to notice her inner strife. Instead, his craggy face split into a proud smile and he clapped her on the shoulder firmly. "Your daddy would've been proud, Lou."

At this, Shepard's spirits brightened slightly. She couldn't help it. "Thank you, sir."

For several blissful moments, Shepard looked up at her uncle and smiled. _Really_ smiled. The judgment and betrayal she had expected to see in his eyes was not there, replaced instead with happiness and shining approval. Seeing such emotion plastered on his face rendered him almost unrecognizable to Shepard, though the unkempt facial hair did nothing to help her cause. She opened her mouth to comment on his appearance— _going for the homeless Rambo look, are we?—_ when the sound of crunching footsteps from behind caught her attention.

"You're going to have to write down all of the different names you use, Shepard," Garrus remarked. "I'm not sure I can keep up with all of them."

It all happened so fast.

The second Tib heard Garrus' flanging voice, his friendly gaze sharpened and his entire face shuttered. Faster than Shepard could react, Tib stooped to the ground and snatched up his rifle, priming it and aiming at directly at the spot between Garrus' eyes with deadly precision borne of years of Alliance training. Shepard thanked her lucky stars that Garrus was equally as fast with his rifle, having leveled it at Tib. She could hear the low growl emanating from her sniper's chest.

Shepard hissed sharply through her teeth and stepped underneath the barrels of their guns to stand between them, putting up her hands to rest against their chests. She shoved them both back a half-step. "Let's think very carefully about this before you both do something stupid," she advised them both, narrowed eyes darting between the two males.

"I don't know why you thought it was necessary to bring a _pet_ home," Tib spat, not taking his eyes off of Garrus. "I want it gone, Lou."

"I go where Shepard goes," Garrus told him, his voice deceptively even.

"I'm not about to let some scaly-ass turian set foot in my house," Tib growled.

"Well, I'm not going to let some paranoid—"

"Gentlemen," Shepard interrupted him, her voice cold. Garrus flinched, but kept his gun raised. Tib didn't bat an eyelash. Frustrated sparks jumped between Shepard's outstretched fingers as she primed her biotics, looking between the both of them. "We have bigger things to worry about right now, so either you both put your guns down or I put _you_ down. Your choice."

For several horrifying seconds, it looked like neither Tib nor Garrus had any intention of letting the situation diffuse, but the latter finally nodded and dropped his weapon to his side—his talon remained near the trigger, however, and Shepard knew he could have it raised and aimed again in under a second. She hoped it wouldn't come to that. Turning from Garrus, she raised a questioning eyebrow at her uncle, who had not moved a muscle. Reluctantly, Tib lowered his rifle. His eyes were narrowed and suspicious as he regarded the turian across from him with nothing short of disgust, but he wisely said nothing. They settled for glaring openly at each other.

"Well, isn't this just… charming," Shepard muttered, rubbing her temples. "Look, why don't we go into the kitchen and have a nice chat that doesn't involve gunfire or yelling? Because I would really, _really_ enjoy that."

Tib bristled. "That thing is not—"

"That _thing_ ," Shepard bit out, rounding on her uncle, "has a name. Officer Vakarian is a part of my crew so you would do well to show him some respect. Understood?"

Tib's eyes bugged out at her authoritative tone. She had never said anything but _yes sir_ or _no sir_ to the old man and, for several moments, Shepard thought she had made a mistake in addressing him like that.

He looked like he wanted to argue more, but at the sight of Shepard's steely eyes, he instead muttered something under his breath and spun on his heel, storming up the front steps and into the house. The front door crashed shut behind him, bouncing a few times against the frame until it stilled, leaving Shepard, Tali, and Garrus in tense silence.

Shepard curled her hands into fists, breathing until her biotics were under control. She exhaled deeply, her shoulders deflating, and ran a hand over her face. "Well… that went about as well as I expected."

Garrus collapsed his rifle and clipped it to his back, raising a browplate at her. "You expected this to happen?"

"More or less."

"More or less of what, exactly?"

"Gunfire and yelling."

"And you decided not to tell us this ahead of time…" he trailed off, "why?"

Shepard dropped the hand from her face and shot him a dry look. "Contrary to popular belief, I do enjoy being wrong once in a while. It keeps me humble."

"Shepard," Tali said nervously, lowering her omnitool and powering down her drone. "Maybe coming here wasn't such a good idea. Not to insult your family, but your uncle seems a little…"

"Unhinged?"

"I was going to say abrasive, but yes."

"He's certainly a character," she agreed. Her eyes followed the path Tib had taken and lingered on the familiar front door. If she knew the old man, he was probably stomping around the kitchen right now, searching for a bottle of whisky and muttering xenophobic sentiments under his breath. "I'll admit he's not the most delightful human alive, but he's not all bad. He's a good man underneath all of the paranoia and close-mindedness. The First Contact War did a number on him. I was worried he might not take kindly to you two—especially you, Garrus. Turians rub him the wrong way. It's one of the million reasons I didn't want to bring anyone with me," she finished, looking pointedly at him.

He flared his mandibles indignantly, crossing his arms over his chest. "I can handle a retired Alliance soldier."

"Just because he's retired doesn't mean he's any less dangerous. The old bastard taught _me_ how to shoot, if that tells you anything. Stay alert, all right?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Tali tilted her helmet to one side, eyes narrowing. "So, why does he call you Lou? Does it mean something in your language?"

Shepard shook her head and reached for her duffel bag, swinging it over her shoulder. "It was the alias I was using when I left the city with Nathan. Short for Louisa, which was my grandmother's name on my mom's side. When Tib found me, I was still going by it and the nickname just sort of stuck, I guess."

"How many times would you shoot us if we used it?" Garrus asked.

She glared and elbowed him sharply, but her lips betrayed her by curling up at the corners. "There's not enough ammunition in the galaxy." She turned and started up the main walkway toward the front door, gesturing to them both over her shoulder. "Come on, time's a-wastin'. Let's get inside and get this over with."

* * *

Garrus didn't like it. Not one bit.

Shepard's uncle was clearly unstable—any man willing to shoot his own family (all right, she wasn't _technically_ related to the man by blood, but it was close enough) clearly wasn't worth trusting, or even consulting on a mission, especially one as time-sensitive as this. He was a loose cannon. The fact that he had such an incredibly engineered tactical cloak didn't put Garrus at ease in the slightest. In fact, it merely made him even more paranoid about getting stabbed in the back at any given second, no matter how many times Shepard reassured him that her uncle would probably play nice and help them out. Keyword being probably _._ Garrus was no stranger to xenophobic humans, but this was a special kind of paranoia—it was the kind that got a turian like him killed.

Garrus and Tali watched Shepard walk up the creaky front steps of the house without moving from their spots in the front yard. Neither of them moved a muscle.

"Garrus, I have a really bad feeling—"

"I know how you feel."

Tali glanced at him sidelong. "You don't think he will actually try anything, do you?"

Garrus shrugged, adjusting the strap of the bag that was slung across his shoulder. "With Shepard right next to us? I doubt it. Still, let's keep a close eye on him."

"Roger that."

Stepping onto the white wooden porch, Shepard turned and looked over her shoulder, frowning down at them both. She called out, "I'm sorry, did that order sound optional? Let's _move_."

"Right behind you." Garrus exhaled through his nose and followed her into the house, Tali trailing slightly behind.

The house itself was a strange mishmash of new and old technology, none of which Garrus recognized. For the first time in a while, Garrus was reminded that Shepard was human—he oftentimes forgot that she belonged to any species at all. She acted so comfortably around the rest of the people in the galaxy, no matter the planet; Shepard always found a way to adapt to her surroundings. But for the first time since Garrus had known her, in her childhood home, she looked like she truly _belonged_. Like a piece of a puzzle finally put back into its place after being lost under the carpet for so many years, she fit into the foyer of the house like it had been built specifically for her.

Garrus watched closely as she kicked her boots off and dropped her duffel bag in an uncomfortable-looking wooden chair that rocked back and forth smoothly under the sudden weight. Shepard's socks were bright green, he noticed.

"Home sweet home," she murmured, peering down the hallway that led to the back of the house, presumably toward the kitchen, "if I can even call it that anymore. It feels… I don't know. Different."

"Maybe you're different?" Tali suggested quietly.

Shepard's gaze lingered on a few framed photos that lined the staircase at her left—Garrus watched her scan them as if looking for one image in particular, but when she noticed that he was staring, she averted her gaze to the other walls of the foyer. "Maybe. Both of you, leave your stuff here for now, all right? Have a seat in there. I'll talk to Tib really quick and then we can get going."

"Aren't we staying here tonight?" Tali asked.

"That was the plan, but I think we should head out sooner than that. The way he talked about Nathan earlier makes me think he doesn't have any information that will help us. I'm going to make sure, though. Be ready to leave in an hour."

"Understood."

"Do you want us to stay here or can we look around?" Garrus asked.

Shepard blinked up at him, eyes wide as if he had spoken a completely different language. "What?"

Garrus raised an inquisitive browplate. She had to have heard him correctly. "I asked if it's okay to look around. I've never been in a human house like this before and I don't know if I'll ever have the chance again."

She didn't miss a beat, her eyes shadowed with an emotion he wasn't able to place. "No. Just stay here and be ready to leave in a hurry. I'll only be a minute."

Garrus pressed his mandibles close to his face and frowned at her, noticing the twitch of her fingers at her side. Was the commander… _nervous_? No, that couldn't be right.

Abruptly, Shepard turned on her heel and walked down the hallway toward the back of the house. She pushed past an old wooden swinging door; light spilled through the opening, revealing a large, bright room with a low table cluttered with dishes and spent thermal clips. Uncle Tib was bracing his hands against the flat surface and his head was hanging low, his shoulder drooped in exhaustion. The door shut behind Shepard, swinging a few times until it finally came to rest. The muffled sound of voices reverberated throughout the house from behind the closed door, but Garrus and Tali could not understand what was being said.

Next to him, Tali put her hands on her hips. "That was… weird. Right?"

Garrus flipped on his infrared scanner. In the other room. Shepard's lissome figure paced back and forth across the kitchen, her arms gesturing wildly as she talked to her uncle. Absentmindedly, he replied, "Very weird."

"I'm starting to wonder if we should have come here at all. Maybe heading to Chicago first would have been a better option."

"Mm." Shepard was running her hands through her hair—a nervous habit, like popping her knuckles. Tib's arms were crossed stubbornly. What was she saying to him?

"I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this will be good for Shepard. I've never heard her talk about her family before, so this trip is at least educational—"

"Yep." She had hopped up one of the kitchen counters near her uncle. Her legs were swinging back and forth—another nervous habit? He'd never seen her do that one before.

"…the furniture is hideous, don't you think? How can that be comfor— _bosh'tet_ , are you listening to me?"

"Not at all."

Tali huffed and narrowed her eyes up at him, planting her hands on her wide hips. "Can you quit watching Shepard's heat signature for five seconds and talk to me? I don't think her own family member is going to kill her while we're standing out here."

She was right. It _was_ pretty unlikely. Reluctantly, Garrus turned off the infrared scanner and looked down at Tali, pointedly flaring his mandibles. "You have my undivided attention."

"You really don't feel the strange vibe in here?" Tali asked, gesturing to their surroundings. He could hear the frown in her voice. "You can't deny that Shepard is acting strange. I've never seen her get this flustered over anything before, and I was there when she first spoke to Sovereign. I understand her frustration about her brother, but the way she's acting around her uncle… it's odd, right?"

"I know what you mean, and that's why I'm not going to stay put and twiddle my talons until she comes back."

Tali stiffened and looked up at him. She took a wary step back. "Shepard gave us an order to stay put."

"I'm well-aware, trust me."

"You're going to ignore a _direct_ order?"

Her horror wasn't completely unfounded. A small part of him wanted to obey the order as it was given without question—the thought of disobeying Shepard so blatantly made his plates itch—but he knew a bad order when he heard one. Something was off about the whole situation: her flustered demeanor, the way she had snapped to attention under the man's scrutiny, the way her hands twitched nervously at her sides when she thought no one was looking. It was all so _wrong._

What was that phrase she was so fond of?Better to ask forgiveness than permission?

"Something isn't right, Tali. I don't know what it is and I sure as hell don't trust that uncle of hers. If we're going to be spending any time here at all, I want to be absolutely sure that we're not about to get a knife in the back." He pulled up his omnitool and did a quick scan of the room. Multiple bugs and sensors had been placed all around them, most of them outdated beyond belief, but he wasn't detecting anything dangerous—yet. He gestured toward the bookshelves at the other end of the adjoining living room. "Run diagnostics on the bugs in that room. I want to know what they're picking up and where the information is going. I'm heading upstairs. Ping me if you find something."

Tali shook her head slowly, her eyes wide behind her violet faceplate. "Shepard is going to kill you if she finds out."

"She's not going to find out. Besides, this is for her own good."

"Since when do you care this much about Shepard's well-being?"

"Since always," he scoffed. "It's our job to keep her breathing. You know that."

"That's not what I meant," she corrected herself. "I meant that you're acting like Shepard can't take care of herself anymore. You're caring _too_ much."

Garrus' fingers faltered over the keyboard of his omnitool. He knew she was right—Shepard was more than capable of taking care of herself. He'd seen her disarm a dozen trained mercenaries with a wave of her hand. She'd survived her own death, as ridiculous as that statement was. She was virtually unstoppable. But, at the same time, something was seriously off about the situation. She was the lynchpin, the only thing standing between the Reapers and the rest of the galaxy, so of _course_ he had to look out for her.

He also had feelings for her. Feelings he didn't quite know what to do with. Feelings they hadn't officially discussed.

Garrus cleared his throat awkwardly. "Call me curious, then."

"Curious," she repeated flatly.

"Shepard is hiding things from us. I want to know what they are."

"I'm shocked," she replied sardonically. Her eyes narrowed imperceptibly. "But really, this is Shepard's private life. Maybe we should respect that. You saw how hard it was for her to talk to us on the shuttle."

Steeling himself, Garrus jerked his head in the direction of the living room. "I've never been good at following bad orders. Search that room and I'll take the upstairs. If we move fast, she'll never know we left."

She glared at him and crossed her arms over her chest resolutely. "You are notdragging me into this. I'm just as worried as you are, but I trust Shepard to know what she's doing."

"Where's your sense of adventure?"

"We have very different definitions of the word _adventure._ Mine involves not having my brain turned inside out by our commanding officer!"

"Come on," he pressed, elbowing her. "We can do a security sweep in five minutes, tops."

Tali looked like she wanted to argue, but she instead clenched her fists and rolled her eyes, muttering, "Keelah, Garrus. If we get caught—"

"We're not going to get caught," he assured her. Setting a hand on her shoulder, he turned her toward the living room and pushed her gently forward. "See what you can find in there. Ping me if it sounds like she's coming back, okay?"

As his foot touched the first step, he heard Tali whisper to herself, "This is what I get for asking to come along. Stupid turian..."

Garrus ignored her, taking the first few steps upstairs in a single stride—this house was obviously made for small humans with legs shorter than his own. His eyes scanned the holographs that lined the walls above the ornate wooden railing, each frame spaced equally apart from one another.

The first few holos were purely decorative—vistas of the surrounding land, some kind of weird abstract art thing that Garrus didn't care for, and a few stills of a large body of water that looked unnaturally blue, but still beautiful. The next image stopped him in his tracks, though. He did a double take at the woman who was standing in the picture.

 _Shepard?_

No, not Shepard, he told himself, but very close. He remembered Tib's comment to Shepard— _you look like your mother—_ but the longer he looked at the picture, the less he agreed with the man's sentiment. The woman in the photo was elegant and statuesque with long, dark hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail that curled gently over one shoulder of her crisp lab coat, and her piercing grey eyes were narrowed coyly at the camera, but that was where the similarities ended.

Her eyes sparkled with a chilling emotion that Garrus couldn't place, but made him feel uncomfortable nonetheless. It was like she was judging whoever had snapped the holo and wasn't altogether pleased with what she saw. With a start, he realized that it was the exact same look Udina usually wore when he strolled the Presidium, a look that said _you are all beneath me and that will never change_ —Shepard always joked about wiping that smug look off his face. The woman's thin lips were curled up at one edge in a similar fashion to Shepard's smiles, but her mother's smile bespoke cold indifference rather than approval.

Garrus blinked. He disliked everything about the woman, from her haughty expression to her manicured fingernails. Quickly, he copied the image onto his omnitool so he could ask EDI to run facial recognition software once they were back on the _Normandy._ Perhaps he could pull up her personal records.

Garrus walked up a few more steps and stopped at the next frame. This one was a group picture, maybe taken at a family reunion or holiday of some kind, and featured what he assumed were both of Shepard's parents with Shepard and her younger brother. Her parents stood behind the children in casual clothes, fingers entwined between them—her mom was smiling tightly this time, a far cry from the half-smile of scorn from the previous holo—and Shepard's father was beaming down at his children with a look of pure adoration on in his dark eyes. Her father looked… friendly. Happy. He was everything his wife wasn't, which struck Garrus as strange.

But that wasn't what caught him off-guard. Not at all.

"Spirits," he breathed, leaning in closer.

Garrus had always been terrible at gauging human ages, but if he had to venture a guess, Shepard looked to be about six or seven in the holo. Her gray eyes were dull and bulging out of their sockets as if they were too large for her face, half-lidded with translucent skin that looked ashen and paper-thin. Her hair had been shaved completely off—she reminded Garrus of Jack, minus all of the tattoos and anger—and her limbs were skeletal beneath the thin material of her oversized clothing, her cheeks gaunt and pallid. Garrus noticed that her mother's free hand was clamped onto one of her bony shoulders and her knuckles were blanched white.

"Hey," Tali whispered from the bottom of the staircase, startling Garrus out of his horror. "If you don't get moving, Shepard is going to catch you and, by extension, me. Quit staring at the pictures and go!"

Garrus beckoned her up the stairs. "Come look at this really quick."

"We don't have time for this. If Shepard comes back—"

"I don't care," he said lowly. Tali straightened up at his solemn subvocals, eyes widening fractionally. He gestured toward the holos on the wall. "Look at these pictures."

Tali muttered under her breath, but tiptoed up the wooden steps to stand beside him. He pointed wordlessly at the photograph of Shepard's mother.

She inhaled sharply, peering at the image. "Is that—"

"Not Shepard," he told her. He pointed at the woman's thin mouth to prove his point. "But it's probably her mother. Her lips are different, see?"

"She looks… unfriendly."

"I was thinking the same thing," he said gravely. "She reminds me of those Cerberus scientists we used to catch back when we were on the SR-1."

"It could just be a bad picture."

"Or not," he murmured, glancing back at the other holo. Tali didn't appear to hear him.

"I never knew Shepard's mother was a scientist," she murmured tilting her head to the side as she scrutinized the picture. "I wondered what she studied. That lab behind her looks pretty high-tech, and the insignia on the lapel of her lab coat looks like the one for Alliance R&D."

"You're sure?"

"Pretty sure. This one is probably an older version of the logo, but the center part is the same. Engineer Cameron on the SR-1 had that logo on his shirtsleeve. He was always rubbing it in my face that he was a real engineer and I wasn't, even though I could code circles around his tiny head all day long."

"Did you find anything downstairs that could tell us what she worked on? Maybe a research journal?" _Or notes on her daughter? Anything at all?_

"Even if I did find something like that, all of those books down there are in some weird human language that I can't translate quickly." She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "Why?"

Wordlessly, Garrus pointed to the second holo.

It took her a few seconds to take in the contents of the image, but when her eyes fell on Shepard's frail form, Tali stiffened and sucked in a sharp breath. "That can't be her. There's no way."

"I'm not an expert on humans, but I know Shepard. It's her."

"She looks like Jack," she whispered, horrified. One of her hands crept up to cover her vocal modulator. "No, she looks _worse_ than Jack. I've never seen anyone so skinny. _Keelah_ , what happened to her?"

"I don't know. Maybe Shepard had some kind of illness when she was younger, or… something. What I don't understand is why the rest of her family looks so happy. It's like she's not even there."

Tali shuddered as cold horror gripped them both. "I can't look at it anymore."

"I think we should search the upstairs, see if we can find anything else."

"I can't believe I'm agreeing with you," she murmured. Tali squared her shoulders and looked up at the turian, taking a deep breath. "But I guess I'll risk getting reprimanded. Let's go."

As they crept up the staircase, Tali pointed out the occasional holo: one was a picture of Nathan on the front porch swing, glasses slipping down his nose comically; another was Shepard's father in his dress blues, dark hair trimmed and neatly slicked back, his expression serious; the last holo showed Shepard perched on the railing out front, gangly legs swinging over open air; her eyes were sunken in their sockets and her cheekbones looked as sharp as knives, but a short crop of dark hair covered her head that made her look a little more human. Her expression was haunted as she looked out over the surrounding cornfield.

Tali gently pushed him further up the stairs, breaking him out of his reverie. He shook his head to clear the thoughts away. _Too many questions, not enough answers._

Once at the landing, Garrus looked down the hallway to his left to see multiple closed doors; slivers of light cut sharply against the dimness, casting strange, angular shadows on the dingy wallpaper. Garrus looked back at Tali—she nodded and urged him forward, gesturing silently toward the first door knob. Tentatively, he reached out and turned the knob, careful not to open it too far to disturb anything that might be on the other side, and peeked into the room. He saw a large unmade bed, multiple gun lockers, with stacks of assorted magazines—thermal clips, concussive rounds, every other possible kind of ammunition imaginable, including _real bullets_ —but nothing else in the room appeared to be useful. As quietly as possible, he closed the door.

"Anything?" Tali whispered.

"Negative. Besides, I'm pretty sure that's her uncle's room and the guy already hates me enough. Let's not push it."

"Fair enough. Try the next door."

The next two doors were nothing more than simple storage rooms packed from floor to ceiling with metal crates, some of which looked brand new and others that looked like they were a hundred years old. Both rooms, Garrus noticed, had bars over the windows and the blinds were closed tightly, blocking out the rest of the world from the room's contents. He wondered what was in the boxes, but Tali reasoned that they didn't have time to look and ended up pressing on down the hallway.

The door at the far end of the corridor was where they stopped. Deep, jagged grooves traversed the door and it was hanging lopsided on its hinges, which were rusted in several places. There was a small keypad where the handle should have been—obviously jury-rigged by an amateur some time ago—and the door itself had large sections that had been broken or splintered at one point and subsequently glued back together multiple times. Garrus and Tali exchanged concerned looks.

"I'm going to venture a guess and say this is Shepard's old room," he deadpanned, pulling up his omnitool to hack the rudimentary lock. "Are those _scorch marks?_ "

"There's some kind of writing on this side," Tali commented, tilting her head.

"Can you translate it?"

"No, the words go off the edge. Could say anything."

"This door looks like it was kicked in by a damned krogan."

"Sounds like Shepard," she admitted. She ran her fingers over the jagged edges of the door, tracing the fractured pieces that didn't fit together as well as they should have. "Still, I've never seen her do anything like this before."

"You didn't see her quarters when we left the ship."

"That bad?"

"Worse."

Tali shook her head and took a step back from the door, keeping her eyes trained on the distorted wood grain of the door. "I— I don't know if we should go inside, Garrus. This whole place feels wrong."

"I've felt that way since we stepped foot on the property. If she isn't going to tell us what's going on, we have to figure it out for ourselves."

Tali put a hand on his arm to get his attention. "I realize that you care for Shepard, but this really isn't the best way to go about helping her." Taking a break from his typing, he looked up at her and tried not to flare his mandibles in surprise at the sad tilt on her helmet. She softly told him, "Garrus, she wouldn't want this. You know that."

"I know," he admitted quietly. "But if we're going to help her and she won't talk to us, we have to get creative."

It was a lie, and they both knew it, but Garrus couldn't bear to admit how selfish he was.

Garrus dropped his gaze from Tali's and focused on matching sections of code for the hack. Within seconds, the lock turned green and he heard the latch release with a soft _creak_. They exchanged nervous looks— _don't go in there_ and _I need to do this_ raced through their respective minds—but before Garrus could lose his nerve, he reached for the handle and pushed the door open.

"More stairs?" Tali asked incredulously. She leaned through the doorway and peered up the steep stairwell. "This place didn't look this large from the outside."

"Humans seem to like using every bit of space they have in their architecture," he murmured, looking over her shoulder. The air was hot and stale as it spilled out into the hallway.

"I'm not going up there," Tali said resolutely. She crossed her arms. "For all I know, that could be where Shepard's uncle hides the skeletons."

"Quit being so dramatic. It's an attic, not an evil lair."

"How would you know? You haven't been up there."

"Oh, come on—"

" _I'm not going_."

"Fine," he said, throwing his hands up in the air exasperatedly. He pointed down the hallway from which they had come. "If you're so content to sit this one out, go back downstairs and ping me if Shepard finishes talking to her uncle. Distract her if need be. Sound good?"

Tali looked like she wanted to punch him, but ultimately decided to roll her eyes and mutter under her breath as she retreated down the hallway. Once she disappeared around the corner and he heard her soft footsteps descend into the foyer, Garrus turned back to the steep staircase that led to Shepard's bedroom.

* * *

"So you infiltrated Cerberus to use their resources to defeat the Collectors and save the galaxy," Tib repeated slowly, trying to absorb what his niece had just told him.

 _Tick._

Shepard bit the inside of her cheek and flattened her hands against the surface of the kitchen table. The old analog clock on the wall was ticking dutifully. Loudly. She nodded carefully, keeping a close eye on her uncle's reaction. "Yes, sir."

"And you had to pretend you were dead for two and a half years for our… _safety_." He raised a skeptical eyebrow.

 _Tock._

"Yes, sir," she repeated, making sure to keep her back ramrod straight. "Cerberus has the funds and resources to hurt the people closest to me, so the Council wanted me to be extra careful. I'm sorry, sir."

Tib exhaled heavily and rubbed a hand over his face. "And the two aliens in the foyer were in on the whole operation?"

"Yes, sir."

 _Tick._

 _Tock._

"Well," he started, lacing his fingers together, "that's quite a story, Lou."

"I realize that, sir. Most people don't believe me when I tell them." Shepard lowered her gaze to the table, focusing intently on the endless whorls in the dark wood grain. "But I hope you believe me when I say it's the truth. Every word."

Shepard waited for him to say _hell no_ or _get out of this house_ , but she was instead greeted with pensive silence. She didn't dare look up at him for fear of seeing his disbelief plainly written on his face. Her uncle had always been a man set in his own ways, unwilling to believe things without definite proof—asking him to believe such a fantastic story was asking a lot of her old mentor. Maybe too much.

 _Tick._

 _Tock._

 _Tick._

 _Tock._

After what felt like hours, Tib let out a mirthless chuckle and reached for his glass of whisky, downing it in one gulp without flinching. "At this point, Lou, I wouldn't care if you went AWOL and started a career dancing on Omega. You're home and that's all that matters."

Shepard let out a controlled breath of relief and fought to keep her face neutral. He believed her—sort of. But hell, even if he didn't buy some of the parts of her partially-fabricated story, he didn't care. She was home, and for the first time since landing the stepping out of the Kodiak, it was starting to feel like it. Suddenly, the clock wasn't as loud as before.

"At ease," he muttered, sinking back into his chair. Shepard allowed herself to relax as he refilled his glass and began swirling the liquid in the cup, staring deeply into it. Shepard bit her lip nervously. Where was she supposed to go from here?

"Your hair is so long," he murmured, tilting his head to the side. "Longer than I've ever seen it. You're wearing it like your mom did before she had you and your brother."

 _Small talk. I can handle that._

Shepard reached up to finger the ends of her loose hair, wincing slightly. "I don't like having it this long, but I haven't had a lot of time to get it trimmed since we finished the operation. I plan on doing that before I report back to Hackett in a few weeks."

"Don't," he stopped her. "It looks a lot better than that buzz cut you kept in Chicago. You'd better keep that shit tied back when you're on duty, though, or else I'll scalp you myself."

"I miss my short hair sometimes," she admitted, running a hand through the tangled strands. "But I have to care a bit more about what people see now that I'm in the spotlight."

"You're talking about your scars."

Instinctively, Shepard's hand went to the base of her skull, touching the smooth patch of skin that should have been covered in thick, white scars from her mother's surgical instruments. When Shepard had woken up in that Cerberus lab that was the first thing she had looked for, blindly reaching up to trace the ridges and bumps that should have crisscrossed the back of her head. Miranda later told her that they were removed for aesthetic purposes. She hated Cerberus for taking them away. She hated her mother for giving them to her in the first place.

She hated herself for missing them.

"Yeah," she lied, her voice hollow. "I don't like people seeing them."

"Never bothered you before."

"Things change."

Tib shrugged and took another swig of whisky, sighing deeply. "Well, you can do whatever you want now that you work for the Council. You could even wear goddamn makeup on the battlefield if you wanted to like that one female salarian Spectre from Sur-Kesh. I forget her name." He snapped his fingers repeatedly, squinting at the ceiling as he racked his brain.

"Torvala," Shepard supplied.

"That's the one!" he crowed. "I don't understand why the freaks even need makeup—it's not exactly going to help them look any better. Even so, I suppose you can break all of the Alliance's rules now and not get reprimanded now. Too much freedom, if you ask me."

"Just because I'm a Spectre doesn't mean I don't have my own set of principles. I run a tight ship."

"Your old man was the same way. Christ, if he could see you now," he mused, humming contentedly. "Spectre Shepard. Sounds god-awful."

"I prefer Commander Shepard. My close friends just call me by my last name, though."

"I noticed that," he murmured, regarding her carefully. "Aren't you worried about getting too comfortable with your subordinates? Bad things happen when rank gets thrown out the window."

"We've been through a lot together, so I don't mind most of the time. But I draw the line at my first name. No one is allowed to use that one."

Jane wasn't a bad name—normal, approachable—but calling her Jane led to people calling her Janie, which sent chills down her spine every time she heard it. She was sure that, in time, she could overcome her hatred of the nickname, but that required time the galaxy didn't have.

"How are your headaches?"

Shepard blinked, allowing her gaze to fall back on her uncle's weathered face. "I don't get them as often as I used to. The Alliance gave me an L4 implant when I enlisted. It keeps me pretty stable."

Tib let out a low whistle. "L4. That's fancy."

 _Not as fancy as the L5n implant Cerberus gave me, but that's neither here nor there,_ she mused darkly. "It gets the job done. Now I only get headaches when I exert myself too much, but I can squeeze off a couple dozen good bursts before that happens."

"No more accidents?"

"None, sir."

"Good," he acknowledged, looking strangely proud of his niece. "Your mom would be happy to hear you say that. She worked really hard to get you to that point."

His words kicked her harder than Grunt's shotgun. The floodgates of Shepard's mind unexpectedly burst open, releasing a deluge of memories—some were hazy and half-formed, but others were sharper than her mother's scalpels: she remembered the frigid, bitter glint of surgical steel; the sour aftertaste of anesthesia that burned her throat and sinuses unforgivingly, numbing her entire body until reality seemed more like fantasy than not. She remembered _hold still, sweetie_ and _it'll all be over soon_ and suddenly, Shepard wasn't sure why she came home at all.

On the outside, Shepard knew her face hadn't changed. Her breathing was the same. Her heartrate was steady and sure. Not a hair was out of place on the level-headed Commander Shepard, despite how her mind raged with seemingly-endless torrents of agonizing recollections.

Shepard placed her hands on the table, lacing her fingers together tightly to distract herself. "I'm not here to talk about my mother, Tib. I'm here to talk about Nathan."

If Tib sensed her internal strife, he did not show it. Instead, he nodded and took another sip of his whisky—no doubt homemade and horrible, based on the acrid scent that wafted through the air around them both. "I know you're probably nervous about seeing him after all this time, but the boy will see reason once you explain yourself." Tib paused, frowning. "He'll probably have you reimburse him for your funeral, though."

"As much as I'd love to have that conversation with him, I… can't," she explained slowly, enunciating every syllable of each word as she debated how to continue. The clock was growing louder. "When's the last time you spoke to him, Uncle Tib?"

His eyes narrowed suspiciously at her serious tone. "Last Tuesday for Wheel of Fortune. He fed me some new-age bullshit vegetable from Illium that's supposed to help my immune system. Fun fact: it didn't fuckin' work."

"Do you know where he's been since then?"

 _Tick._

 _Tock._

Tib scrutinized her carefully and set his glass of whisky down, pushing it aside. Lowly, he asked, "Lou, I don't like your tone right now. Is Nate in some kind of trouble?"

 _Tick._

 _Tock._

Shepard took a deep breath, steeling herself for the reaction her uncle was undoubtedly about to have. She focused on the rush of blood in her own ears and the toaster on the counter behind Tib's shoulder as she explained, "I got a message yesterday from the—from Beckett."

 _Tick._

 _Tock._

 _Tick._

 _Tock._

Abruptly, Tib swore and swatted his glass off the table with one of his enormous, calloused hands. It smashed into the fridge door and shattered into a million pieces, but Shepard didn't flinch.

"Report, Lou. _Now_ ," Uncle Tib hissed, slamming a hand on the table.

Shepard straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin in the air obediently. "Yesterday at 1800 hours I received an encrypted transmission from the Tenth Street Reds, completely untraceable past Earth's extranet satellite. Enclosed in the message was a video which showed Nathan tied to a chair in an abandoned apartment complex or hotel."

"What does Beckett want?"

"He wants me in exchange for Nathan. I need to turn myself in five days or else he will kill him. He also asked that I come alone."

"Tell me you have leads."

"No, sir," she said. "No police reports of any kind, but limited security footage shows that he was taken in West Englewood in Chicago, though the precise location of his capture is unknown. I have no more information on the situation, but my team is doing their best to track him down as we speak."

Tib stood up from the table and ran a hand over his face, squeezing his eyes shut. "And you expected me to know how he ended up in Chicago? Or _why_ he was there? Jesus, Lou. Didn't I always tell you to—"

"Check your corners," she filled in, standing up to face him at eye level. She flattened her palms against the surface of the table and leaned toward him. "I remember everything you taught me, actually, and you're my first corner. Tell me what you know about Nathan's whereabouts, if anything, and make it fast. I have a lot of ground to cover."

"I don't know anything," he breathed out, running a hand through his ratty mop of salt-and-pepper-hair. He began to pace back and forth in the kitchen. "After we ate dinner on Tuesday, he told me he would be back in a week. Meridian probably knows more than I do."

"Who?"

"Meridian's his girlfriend. She's a museum curator over in Wichita and she has a daughter named Talisa. Nate's been seeing her for about a year and a half, I think. If anyone knows why Nate went to Chicago, it'll be her."

"I'm going to need her contact information."

Tib leaned heavily against the edge of the kitchen counter, his shoulders sagging. He suddenly looked much older than his sixty-four years. "I can do you one better, if you're willing to wait."

Shepard frowned deeply. "What do you mean?"

"Meridian is supposed to go to London this weekend to broker some kind of trade deal with the British Museum over some Prothean artifacts from Mars. She's dropping Talisa off here tomorrow morning so I can watch her while she's gone. Last I heard, she'll be here around 0900 on her way to Kansas City, so you can ask her all the questions you want."

Shepard felt her chest tighten. "That's over 24 hours from now. You can't get me in contact with her sooner?"

"Meridian doesn't use an omnitool at home. She only uses it at work."

Shepard rubbed her temples and cursed under her breath, squeezing her eyes closed. Tib was right—Meridian would be their best lead on Nate's location—but would it be worth the sacrifice of what precious little time they had left to locate him? What if it was nothing more than a dead end? Her mind was racing with every possible outcome of this situation, none of them good.

Her thoughts were so tumultuous that she almost didn't hear the ceiling creak above her head.

Shepard's eyes snapped open and darted upwards, previous thoughts abandoned. Tib didn't seem to have noticed the faint sound above them both, shockingly enough—perhaps the older man's hearing was finally beginning to fail after years of concussive grenades and gunfire—but Shepard strained and listened closely to see if the sound repeated itself. _Please tell me I imagined it._

A cold chill settled in her stomach when the soft creaking noise presented itself once again. Although it had been over ten years since she had lived in the house, she _knew_ that sound.

Someone was in her room.

 _Goddammit, Garrus._

"Uncle Tib," Shepard started coolly, lowering her eyes to meet his. She tried to keep the irritation out of her voice. "Permission to stay the night here, sir? With my team?"

Tib's bushy dark brows were furrowed, the creases around his mouth deep with worry over Nathan, but his face managed to soften slightly at her question. "As far as I'm concerned, you're the real owner of this house. You shouldn't even have to ask."

He was wrong—the property had been passed down to Nathan when she died over Alchera—but his words still warmed her heart. Shepard smiled softly and walked closer to him, stopping just within arm's reach. "Thank you, sir. I—well, it's good to be home. Finally."

Tib reached up and settled a meaty hand on her shoulder and squeezed firmly. He looked at her remorsefully, his eyes full of regret. "I may not have seemed especially… _grateful_ earlier, but I'm glad you're back. I only wish the circumstances were better."

"We'll find him, Tib."

"I know, Lou. I know."


End file.
